Photographing Forests
by Pyxis Leon
Summary: This is our story, of how potions come between romance and friendships are established outside normal circumstance. And how, through it all, the way you drive me crazy is so intoxicating. Jasper/Draco, MPREG, The Golden Trio, adventure and love. ON HIATUS
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Chapter 1**

**Photographing Forests, by Pyxis Leon.**

**Pairing: Jasper/Draco.**

**Rating: M for future content.**

**Disclaimer: I own the general plot line. Everything else belongs to the authors themselves who created the characters and story lines I have borrowed.**

**Please Note: This story is AU. I believe you are smart enough to figure out why. Any problems, please don't hesitate to ask. I have also revised this chapter and cleared up as many spelling errors, plot errors and typographical errors I could find.**

**Please see my profile for story warnings.**

X

Under duress from the Ministry, my Mother and I fled to Washington State, America. They hadn't specified a place to move too, but we decided the further away from our enemies the better. And once in America, we were out of sight and out of mind.

No longer would we be subjected to financial anxieties or the occasional vigilante trying to right the apparent wrongs we had made in the past. Harry Potter helped us a lot, throwing his weight around to extricate us from gaol and punishment and for a long time I wasn't sure why. But arriving in America I began to understand; I was free from the confines of a Dark Lord's reign and now all manner of things seemed possible. I could move as freely as I wanted too- I could have sex, take drugs, make friends... I could be a normal kid, with normal kid values and not worry about the pressures from evil overlords. And I guess Harry saw that too; he saw that maybe I was a bully and a fiend, but I would have been that anyway, with or without Voldemort. But I would never have wreaked havoc over my peers like I did, I would never have Imperiused someone for personal gain, without Voldemort.

So Harry gave me and my Mother a second chance. We were free from imprisonment and off to discover a different world.

Travel wasn't really a luxury the Malfoy's afforded themselves, when so much time had been needed to keep financial security and hold allies together, so I didn't really know what to expect when I arrived in America. I think, from the basic knowledge I had of foreign countries, I wished for heat and sun, ice-cream and beaches. Instead, when we arrived outside our new house, I was met with forest. Sparkling drops of cold rain were filtered through the leaves overhead and soaked me to the core. When my mother turned around to ask me whether I liked our new house, her hands gesturing wildly to the really modern, really large cabin, I smiled and said that I did.

The truth was that I was dubious. I wasn't sure by what means my mother had gone to secure this cabin and who she had acquired it from. And it was creepy, for the first time in my life, to be in a place so devoid of magical signature. The taxi driver waved at my mother as he retreated down the long, bendy driveway and embarrassingly my mother blushed.

'Come, Draco.' She said, ushering me up to the door and into the house, where I stood grudgingly marvelling the sparse, open plan interior so far from what my previous abode had been like. Art, real unmoving art, hung on the walls and coloured the white walls up prettily; not a magical item in sight.

'I'm gonna go find my bedroom.' I said, turning and fleeing up the stairs, checking room by room to find the best one for myself. But my mother must have known that I would want the room with the balcony, that looked out to the bowl of the forest, with the en-suite bathroom and an envious built in closet because she had decorated it for me, in colours and fashions I didn't know I liked until now.

'I didn't choose it,' she said coming up behind me, correcting my earlier thoughts. 'There's this firm, that helps families to acclimatise to muggle ways of living.'

'_Muggle_?' I asked, enunciating the words slowly and precisely. I opened my eyes in wonderment, so tightly laced with fear of the unknown. But I kind of liked the implication that word held. Muggle; hard work, new world, fun times. If I went with it, which I knew I would, I could live out the last of my teenage years... as a teenager.

'Yes, sweetie, muggle. We don't have to live like muggles, but we are slightly closer to muggle society now.' I didn't like the placating tone; it filled me with ideas of being five years old.

But I grew up quickly and I smiled at my mum. 'It's good. It will show us exactly how much we are starting a new.'

X

I was under qualified to attend the school in Forks full-time, but my mother managed to wing it so I could attend a couple of hours a week and study English Literature and Mathematics. I gave the excuse, to all those asking, that I was taking those classes just as a way to improve my grade before I attended one of the Ivy League schools in the coming scholastic year. Unfortunately, for social interaction, people tended to avoid me either because they thought I was a genius - _"You're that really, really smart kid that like, doesn't need to be here right?"_-or because of my accent. And I didn't really have a lot to say to anyone either, because I didn't know what popular British muggle culture was, let alone American.

So I grew fascinated with the woods around my home in my spare time. Wandering, listening, enjoying the sense of freedom the leaky tent of green would give me. And my mother became more and more involved in Muggle culture; she liked the television and she liked to cook atrocious meals that I ate gladly just too please her. She often said it was a liberation, to get away from Pure Blood society, and I quite agreed with her. Not once in those first few months of my life did I miss the insipid money minded attitude of Pure Bloods, or the backstabbing oneliners, or the namedropping. I didn't miss having to be polite to people, just for personal gain, and I didn't miss my wand that was stashed in my bedside drawer.

As a result of A+'s I received on tests at school, Mum gave me a digital SLR camera, which I would use religiously out in the forest once I had a handle on how to use it. Taking it to school, I became aquainted with the School Paper team, who showed me a lot of interesting tricks and skills that I applied to my photo-editing on my laptop.

The sense of muggle living washed me clean of the Dark Arts. It wasn't very long after that, when I would regret having ever let myself become devoid of magic.

X

I spent the most part of the lead up to Christmas trying in vain to fill the isolation with photography and driving, as and when my instructor could fit it in. I was getting quite good at both it seemed, even though a depression was taking over. A throw back from the past washed over me and I became powerless to escape lost feelings of a packed Great Hall, and people who could talk to me about things that I_ knew_.

I took to the forest more and more.

Sitting in my room at the desk with my laptop open in front of me, I scanned the pictures I had taken that day. Macro shots of snow on leaves, vertical shots of trees. And then something caught my eye; a picture I had taken of a deer, running wildly through the forest that I had managed to capture on a high shutter speed. Having already wondered whether the pictures themselves would turn out alright, I was briefly amazed that with clarity you could indeed make out the form and stance of the wild deer.

It's eyes where shockingly wide. It's mouth hung open like it had been outrunning a hunter for miles and miles. And there, in the background, tailing the beast was a flash of colour.

I clicked to the next frame. The blurred shape of a human running parallel to the deer, I was sure of it, had my heart beating a heavy rhythm into my chest. My blood felt sluggish as it pumped through my veins.

That night I kept away from my balcony.

But the next day, having convinced myself that I must have imagined the blurry shape to be human, I stole off into the forest to eat lunch solo. Mother was in one of her home maker moments, and fussing annoyingly over Christmas decorations and such. She had said she had invited some of our neighbours round in the evening for dinner, and I was keen to stay away from the Pure Blood paranoia that would come with her trying to kindle everything into perfection.

Suddenly, I wished I had brought my broom with me so I could fly around the trees. I could pretend they were quidditch hoops and spectator stands and every time Potter was about to get the snitch, I would vanquish him and steal it! I would circle him high and torment him at low heights and all the trees would praise me, as if they themselves where the audience in my flight.

I needed to get up, as high as I could. It was probably the isolation driving me sparky, but I knew for certain then and there that if I climbed, for the briefest of moments as that vertigo hit me I would feel just as I did every time I went into battle over the Golden snitch.

So I found a tree and started. My lunch, my bag, my camera lay at the base of the tree waiting for me to descend. I went higher, muscles pulling and working themselves as they hadn't been able to in the last couple of years. My stronger arm, my wand arm, helped me manage the branches and my lithe body had minimal resistance to the drag.

Looking down was not such a good idea though. I froze, about twenty feet in the air, and had to grip with my arms and my knees to the thick arm of tree I was balanced on. The panic had me loosing track of time, and eventually day turned to night.

Mother was going to be so unhappy.

And I was so humiliated; getting stuck up a tree like a baby. I cried for a while, but that was just enraging and unhelpful, and then I tried to shuffle round so I could get comfortable. It had been raining for some time already, and as I tried to find purchase with my hand, I slipped and threw myself totally off balance.

The breath whooshed out of me and I was flying.

X

'Alice saw a boy falling out of a tree and dying... I could hardly let that happen could I?' Said a smooth, deep voice with a fierce determination that had me rising from the depths of sleep. I was quite happy that someone had decided to put me to bed.

Even though I was supposed to be stuck up a tree...

Slamming my eyelids into the back of my head, and sitting up simultaneously, I was quite convinced I had died and gone to the afterlife. I was in a darkened room... a dead sort of life came pulsating towards me from across the room. 'It was quite funny to watch him up there for a couple of hours.' The presence said again, humouring himself no doubt.

'Who are you talking to?' I asked groggily. 'Where am I?'

'Hold on, Edward,' the presence said again as he lifted something down away from his ear. A light, so bright it pierced the darkness, followed his hand and briefly it illuminated his face. His face; a beautiful, ethereal face. It was just a glance before it was darkened again. 'I'll be taking you home in a minute, son.' The man left the room, from darkness and into darkness. I groaned and stayed still, quite frightened and confused.

The stranger led me to his car and drove me home. His wife sat up front and following us, quite absurdly at the time, were several of his children. The husband nor the wife tried to talk to me, for which I was grateful and dismayed. We drove down my driveway, my mother standing on the steps to the front door with magnitude and beauty.

She looked welcoming.

'Draco, what on earth where you thinking?' She said mockingly. 'Thank goodness the good Doctor here was around.' She hugged the husband and the wife with such enthusiastic embrace I was dumbfounded by their familiarity. The husband was smiling.

The house didn't smell like food. It smelt cheerful and Christmassy. I was suddenly sorrowful for my lost lunch... and then my camera. I had hoped she would be cooking for our guests.

I let my mother lead the way into the house. 'Go change darling,' She said to me and then added as an after thought, quite loud enough for all those in attendance to here, 'I'll spell up some food for you, if you like.'

I looked at her like she was mad, all the way up the open stairs, waiting for the maniacal explosion. It didn't feel safe, all of a sudden, to be alone with my mother and her new, slightly bizarre and way too beautiful new friends.

But I ate the food she sent up, and showered and changed into the most suitable casual clothes I could find and felt thoroughly muggle in my dumbfounded fumblings around my room. For the first time in a long time, I took my wand out of my bedside drawer and stuffed it up my sleeve.

I walked down the stairs to cheers and clapping. 'Show us another one, Cissy!' Cried the good Doctor. I peered through the balustrades, sat on the stairs like a child. But they all must have heard my ascent, because every single guest turned to look at me.

'Come down, Dear,' my mother said, as she stood in front of our guests with her wand held aloft. 'They won't bite!' She crowed, and everyone fell into heaps of laughter. I felt thick between the ears.

Reluctant in my movements, I walked down the stairs. My eyes trained solely on my mother. I screamed questions at her in my mind, none of which she could answer. 'I am sorry to be rude, Mother,' I said slowly and quietly, 'but I feel a little lost.'

The room became still, silent. 'Mother...?' I asked.

The Doctor moved into my line of vision. Holding out his hand, he said: 'Hello, Draco, I'm Carlisle Cullen.' I took his hand. 'And this is my wife, Esme.' He said, gesturing to a graceful, wonderful woman with vibrant brown hair.

I smiled sweetly at her. 'And I'm Alice!' Came a buoyant, tiny little woman, bounding up to me and grasping me into a hug. 'It's so nice to finally meet you.' She said, before I was taken to a new angle by a strong hand on my shoulder.

Words faltered me. For a second, I lost all coherent sense of being. I was neither izard or muggle. I wasn't Draco or Malfoy. I was metaphysical, a brush of breath from one lover to another. I was the first kiss, the first dance, the proposal and the burst of love all rolled up into one.

'I'm Jasper.' He said. I had seen him before in my English class, but never before this close up. Silver skin and tempting lips. The same gold eyes all his family possessed.

'And this is Emmett and Rosalie.' Carlisle said, motioning towards a hunk of a man and a beautiful woman. Same silver skin, same gold eyes.

With all the composure I had ever known to have, I smiled politely at the family and moved to stand by my mother. 'They're vampires!' She crooned next to me, 'Isn't that just fabulous!?'

I was sure my mother had lost the plot. I had never studied vampires at Hogwarts, so I wasn't sure whether she was telling the truth or had completely gone insane. But the Good Doctor just went on smiling serenely, and for someone with licence to practise any kind of medicine, or healing, I was very much in belief that despite the incredulity of it all, my mother was in fact telling the truth.

'But we're vegetarian vampires, so you don't need to worry!' Alice said happily, dancing her way through to me and grasping my hand.

'He wasn't worried at all,' Jasper said, and I used all my courage and determination not to look at him. 'Dumbstruck, but not worried.'

'Show off!' Alice said, sticking out her tongue. 'Come, Draco, show me your room.'

'She means your closet,' Emmett said from his place of the couch, 'She'll have your Winter term outfits picked out in seconds. I'd watch her if I were you.'

Alice led me up the stairs. I could hear Carlisle asking my mother, with such delight it was palpable, to shoot a beam of sunlight from her wand at him and the laughter that followed.

'So are you a wizard aswell?' Alice asked, swapping places with me at the top of the stairs.

It was a bizarre question. Not once in my entire life had someone asked me that. I was already quite come upon by the grounding feeling from Jasper, that Alice questioning my lineage was terribly unsettling. 'Yes.' I said in response.

'We've never met witches or wizards before...' She said. 'But your mom said that you have some Vampire in you, which is how she knew what we were.'

I stopped, my hand gripping the doorknob to my room, my palm starting ache from the aggression. 'She said what?'

'Your mom is a bit airy, isn't she?' Alice said in return. 'She forgets to tell you a lot of things.'

'Well you know what they say about blondes.'

Alice gave a tinkle of laughter. I opened the door to my room, and she gave a little gasp of delight. 'Wonderful! Simply wonderful... what fantastic decoration... I haven't seen a four poster bed with such detail in years... are those wrought iron roses on the headboard?'

'Are you all really family?' I asked a little while later, whilst I took to the balcony for a cigarette. Alice busied herself with my wardrobe.

'Oh no. Rosalie, Emmett and Edward where all turned by Carlisle and then "adopted". He turned Esme too. But Jasper and I have different beginnings. Emmett and Rosalie bonded after Emmett was turned.

'What about you? Do you have siblings?'

'No, no. Je suis unique. Have you bonded?'

Alice gave me a small smile. 'Nope! But I can see in my visions that I will, one day.'

'Who's Edward?' I asked.

'Edward's in the year below you at school. He's our brother, so to speak. He's with his girlfriend tonight.'

'Ah...'

'Anyway, we should go downstairs. It's probably impolite to leave a human in a room full of vampires too long.' Alice said, her smile so wonderful it dazzled me.

In the sitting room, a group discussion was being held.

'Well I didn't even know witches and wizards were real, did you Emmett?' Rosalie was saying. I stood there, looking for a place to sit down like a plum.

'Here Draco,' Jasper said, offering up his seat, 'sit here.' And I could hardly refuse him, as he moved so purposely to better my needs. I plonked myself down with a muttered thanks and didn't once look in his eyes. He perched himself on the arm of the sofa next to me, so I was sat between him and Carlisle. In some social circles, this would be considered lethal. But my mother and I had thrown caution to the wind.

'Well we have quite a large population of Vampires in Britain,' my mother said in response to Rosalie, 'but they have to live under the regulations of the Ministry.'

'The Ministry?' Asked Carlisle with clear impression.

'Oh yes, they govern all of Britain's magical population.'

'Well I never.' Said Carlisle. 'The Volturi would have a fit if they knew.'

'They must know,' said Esme with confidence in her resonating voice, 'with all their fingers in so many pies...'

'The Volturi?' I asked.

'They are one of the oldest vampiric covens, and one of the largest, in the world. They kind of rule our world.' Jasper said, leaning in towards me so his breath swept up against my ear. I felt very embarrassed, and couldn't bring myself to look and see whether anyone had noticed the gentle exchange.

'Oh, well there's a big coven in Britain. They live up and around the mountains in Scotland; over five hundred of them.'

A silence covered the room. 'I can't take the shock, guys. Get over it.' Jasper said.

'Five hundred?' Emmett gasped.

'Oh yes.' My mother replied like it was common knowledge.

'And they live together?' Carlisle asked.

'Yep. Prey on muggles who climb the mountains or camp around the base. Or they go on holidays, I think, but they kind of keep to themselves up there and don't bother us magical folk, or the Ministry incinerates them.'

'Thank God Edward isn't here, Mrs. Malfoy, or he would be picking your brain.'

'Is he the mind reader?' My mother asked back. She sat with her hands in her lap, so socialite and wonderful, and she didn't look out of place in the family of vampires either. She was as beautiful and as brilliant.

'Mind reader?' I questioned to no one in particular. Alice took the opportunity to answer me with a gleeful emission of sound.

'Every vampire has a talent. Some are character traits, like Carlisle who has undefeated compassion and others have supernatural talents like Jasper who is an Empath.'

'And Alice is a Seer.' Jasper added.

'And Edward is a mind reader.' I said. I looked around the room and smiled. 'Well, I'm a wizard and my talent is potions.'

'Potions?' Carlisle asked, turning to me. He engaged me in conversation for quite a while, becoming more and more interested with every new potion I described to him.

'We better go to hunt, Carlisle.' Emmett said, gesturing to Alice and Jasper who were standing beside Rosalie and himself. 'Don't want to get caught up with those father and son teams on Christmas day.'

Goodbyes were exchanged pleasantly. I held back a blush as I said goodbye to Jasper, and trained my eyes not to look out after him. Carlisle looked over to my mother and Esme who were talking with maniacal expressions about interior design. 'Is there any potions that work on vampires?' He asked me, quiet and low with his voice now. 'I was going to ask before, but I didn't want to excite the others.'

'Oh, I'm not sure about that, Mr. Cullen. I can have a look for you, though.'

'I would be in your debt if you did.' He gave me a winning smile, but somehow I knew it wasn't to try and influence me in any way. 'Now tell me Draco, are you feeling alright after that terrible fall you had earlier?'

'I didn't die. I must be.'

X

_**This story just popped into my head after reading Marblez **__Of Lions and Lambs: Part One. __**I decided to give this pairing a go, as it just seems to sit well with me, and alas here we are. If I get enough response, I will expand on this story.**_


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer as in chapter one still applies.**

**This is part two of the original first chapter. I have shortened it down so it is easier to read. **

X

Mother and I planned a couple of days holiday in the Seattle City. At my request, she called upon the firm who had relocated us to Forks and made plans to meet up with an acquaintance of the owner, so they could show us around the wizarding part of town. Doctor Cullen, who usually emitted sense and calm, was almost bursting at the seams to come with us.

'They'll probably kill you,' my mother had said, 'let's get the lay of the land first.'

And I had reassured him that I would buy every tome possible that held information on magical vampires.

Our guide, a tall man with curly brown hair, greeted in the entrance hall of the Fairmont Olympic Hotel. 'Good afternoon, Mrs. Malfoy. I am Fraiser Crane.'

'Nice to meet you, Fraiser. Please call me Narcissa. And this,' she said gesturing to me, as I stood at the foot of the staircase without a modicum of respect, 'is my son, Draco.'

I walked forward. Having been so long with out exposure to my own kind, I was instantly awash with the stink of magic. Electric, tingly and warmth. I held out my hand, and Fraiser held it in his own large one. His palms were soft and he smiled at me. I was at ease.

He took hold of both me and my mother, and lead us around the building to where no muggles were in sight. He apparated us, a feeling which I hadn't missed, right into a bustling market square. The magical energy was palpable and I was glad I had brought my wand. Street sellers, with anti-rain charms over their wears, were calling and offering, whilst people darted through and around in the miserable rain.

Fraiser took us into a rather snooty establishment. 'It's about lunch time, I say.' And we were seated. Against my own intentions, my stomach started to lurch with hunger as I read all the wizardry food items on the list. Inglepix Pate, Snookle Fish broth, Sausage and Mash...

'And what is this wizarding district called?' My mother asked, sipping wine.

'This is the Olympia. There's Kentish town; an upmarket boutique district, but a rather lot smaller than Olympia and there's others, dotted around here and there.' Fraiser's tenor voice seemed to visibly excite my mother.

'Well I never!' My mother exclaimed. 'We had two, in England. Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade.'

'Ah, but you were in a war, were you not?' Fraiser said with majesty. 'Only fair that the world became insular for you.'

After lunch, which was incredible and made me feel guilty for liking it, we headed towards the shops. Fraiser gave us a list of places that we should be delighted to see, including the Wizards National Theatre and The Phronistery. I made a beeline for The Olympic Library, and having registered my details with the Welcome Witch, darted here and there for about an hour, picking out the books that would appeal to me and the Good Doctor.

I paid a special fee for express delivery, and left to find my mother and Mr. Crane. I saw them across the street, laughing and smiling at some joke store window, and noticed for the first time what life without my father actually meant for my mother. She looked delightfully happy.

'Hey, Mum.' I said as I approached. 'I've done everything I need.'

'Well, I guess that's us done for the day,' mother said to Fraiser Crane, 'It was lovely to meet you. You must be in touch.'

'It was indeed a pleasure.' He replied, taking my mothers hand and kissing it. 'I work at the Eddie Nervosa hospital, just up there,' he pointed to the north of The Olympia, 'and we need some new pictures, some soothing gentle pictures, for my ward. If you are interested, Draco, of selling some of your work, you should come see me.'

Stunned for words, I shook my head in agreement and shook his hand goodbye.

'He's a mind healer, you know.' My mother said, leading me down the street and away from The Olympia. 'Head of the ward. Nice hands. Invited me for dinner tomorrow...'

I laughed.

X

I sat on my balcony the day we arrived home, feeling rather refreshed to be back in Forks. Mother had a sweet glow on her face which I surmised she received from the enthusiastic approach Healer Crane had to taking her out nightly when in Seattle. I was happy that she was happy. Laid out on the table in front of me were the books I had loaned from the library, and it felt weird to read books where the diagrams moved and the words rearranged themselves in an affliction of perfecting grammar.

I had sent word to the Cullen's that I had succeeded in finding text on vampires but since hadn't heard back from them. I roamed my eyes over Potions for Creatures with a dull satisfaction. I didn't want to be into this world any longer, but the sense of home it gave me was hard to resist.

I came across a few uses for vampire venom; most notable was its use in death hindering potions, but the tome was of little else for me. At a humouring level, I did learn the way to stop vampiric cows rampaging was to inject them with the blood of a newborn calf, but that was the extent of it.

I moved on to _The Darkness in Brewing_, and there found a few potions that could indeed be used by vampires. I made a mental note to investigate the uses of normal, everyday potions on immortals. I wondered on the effects of Pepper Up potion and my thoughts soon turned to more exotic, more complicated brews such as Felix Felicis. Would they work too?

'These books are rather interesting, aren't they?' Said a deep and sweet voice behind me. I stubbed out the cigarette I had been smoking and turned around with minimal shock. As a wizard, you got used to people showing up silently and in the most unusual ways.

'Oh, yes.'

'I have never seen pictures move like this.' Jasper said, leaning over me and running his fingers over a diagram of a cauldron, with a stirring stick moving counter-clockwise three times and clockwise four. It also showed an explosion, if the brewer didn't adhere to the stirrings correctly, and as such the contents of the cauldron exploded all over the page.

I tried very, very hard not to turn around and look at him in such close proximity. 'We have moving photographs too.' I said in response. Jasper's breath tickled my hair.

'Carlisle is held up at the hospital,' he gave me as reason to his presence, 'so I said I would come over, so you didn't think we were ignoring you.'

I thought back to the first moment I had met Jasper, really met him. Close up he is so dirtily angelic, so alluring and so perfect. My heart started to beat faster and he seemed to stop breathing. 'Don't you find it hard to be around humans?' I asked.

I turned a page in the book and pretended to study it intently, moving away from him by an inch or so. 'Yes.' He said so clearly, I think my heart skipped a beat. I might have, should have been worried that he admitted a weakness which could be potentially lethal to me, but I stayed mightily calm under the circumstances.

I had lived through a war and had to fight to stay alive. I had to fight to be the alpha male in every field possible, and I had to keep my head held high when I didn't win. I had done terrible things to people and had terrible things done to me and I had seen darkness and had seen death and I wasn't afraid of it any more. To have Jaspers perfect mouth lock on to my neck and suck the life from me would be a pleasure, and almost honour.

'We don't respond well to people willing to let us kill them.' He said as if he himself were reading my thoughts. 'We can feel your submission. You are not afraid of us, Draco?'

'No, I am not. Slightly wary, but you are nothing to what I have seen.'

'And what have you seen?' He asked with such a division in his voice between pure interest and wicked humour.

'Death, torture, rape. mountain trolls that would crush you to death, and werewolves that liked to play with their food. I've seen dementors and I was in the party of Death Eaters, that answered to one of the most vile and evil wizards of history.'

'And who was that, Draco?' Jasper asked, clear humour now. It irritated me and then I felt a sense of calm come through the hot read of annoyance.

'Voldemort.'

'Hmm,' Jasper said, his hand an inch away from mine on the table, 'he doesn't sound too scary.'

'Well he was.' I said, the irritation very strong now. 'He tried to make me kill Dumbledore, and if it wasn't for Snape-'

'_Dumbledore_?' Jasper asked with sparkling amusement. '_Snape_? Oh this is priceless.'

'I'm sorry? Priceless?'

'Too good to be true. It's all so... archaic and English.'

'British.' I corrected. 'It was rather horrifying living through it all, whether he sounds scary or not.'

'So have you found anything interesting about us, Draco?' Jasper asked, his breath once again tickling my ear. I shifted so he had to move out of my way and went to stand on the opposite side of the table. I pulled a smoke out of the packet and lit it with the tip of my wand, which Jasper followed with his eyes.

'Not really, I've only just started reading.' I said through an exhale of smoke. Jasper breathed in deeply.

'Can I have one?' He asked, already taking it out of the packet. 'Light it, with your wand?'

I did so. I wondered why on earth a vampire would want to smoke. But he looked glorious, inhaling and exhaling and in the dull light coming through the canopy of trees, the ember of his cigarette glowed against his glittering skin. I had a feeling he was doing it for me and I kept my gaze away from him eyes.

'So you haven't found anything?' He asked teasingly.

'Well I found a potion that can stop a vampire from thirsting for human blood.' I said nonchalantly, as if it was common knowledge. I hadn't expected him to loose all composure and start stuttering like a fool. 'Are you okay?' I asked and all of a sudden I felt the most compelling euphoria light up inside me. Until that moment, I hadn't realised how much of a whelp I had become, post-Voldemort and how affected I was by the decisions I had made and the things I had witnessed.

I knew he had pushed the feelings onto me and I wasn't upset by the invasion of personal space. It felt good, to feel good. I had missed being excited about something to the extent of it taking over me.

He phoned Carlisle who, with much persuasion, managed to calm Jasper down. 'Carlisle said he would love to talk to you about this.' Jasper said when he'd hung up the phone. 'If that's okay with you?' I was sure I should have felt manipulated, but for the life of me I couldn't bring myself to feel that way.

'Sure. When?'

'Tonight, when he gets home from the hospital. I'll ask everyone else to be there.'

'Could you ask them to come here?'

He looked at me deeply. 'Yes, of course.' He buzzed around on his phone for a while and I pretended to be interested in the books on the table. I spent a few minutes gazing over a book of magical photo editing and ignited a burning itch to start manipulating some of the muggle photographs I had taken of the woods.

'Are you okay?' Jasper asked me. I nodded. 'You seem... eager.'

'I am. I want to go and turn some of my non-magical pictures into magical ones.'

'Can I watch?' He asked with vigour.

'Sure, wait here.' I said whilst I got a few prints from my computer desk. 'Here, these are from the forest.' I said, gesturing around us. 'I want to make this bird fly.' I said pointing to a small creature I had caught on a high shutter speed. I looked through the book and found a page dedicated to fragmented motion.

Jasper inched his way towards me whilst I worked. It felt nice to not be embarrassed when I magically made a mistake, because this vampire wouldn't know what I had done to go wrong. The magic running through my veins welcomed me using it. Very soon, as I was getting a handle on making the little bird move around the photograph, Jasper was standing close enough our bodies touched frequently. I was humiliated to realise that he must sense the spikes of fuzzy attraction to his presence.

My attraction seemed to double and my humiliation fade away.

'OK, I think the picture is done. What do you think?' I asked him. He leaned into me slightly and stared for long moments as the bird flew around the frame.

'It's beautiful. I have never seen anything like it.'

He looked incredibly earnest when he said that. He fingered the photo, slowly and lightly. 'You can have it.' I said.

'I couldn't.'

'And why not?' I asked, slightly put off.

'Because if you gave it to me, I would be constantly looking it and thinking of you.' He turned to me and looked at me and this time I had to look in his electric honey eyes.

I lost the ability to breathe for a moment. 'Then take it and stick it to your wall and only think of me when you pass it.'

'I would spend hours staring at it. Alice would think she had lost her best friend.'

'Well then, don't take it if you don't want it.'

Jasper placed a hand over his heart. 'I never said I didn't want it.'

'Take it then!' I said with crystal clear annoyance.

He smiled at me. His teeth, I noticed, were seductively crooked and for a second I was overcome with a lustful longing to have those teeth close to my skin. I shuddered away the feeling; what was I thinking? Wizards did not, with a clear mind, akin themselves to dark creatures. But it was too late now, I was starting to like the Cullen's.

'Do you have anything planned for the rest of the day?' Jasper asked me as he held the photo lightly between his fingers.

'Nothing concrete, why?'

'Well, I had this idea...'

'Go on.' I encouraged. I was prepared for him to suggest more magical or vampiric things to do, which thrilled me and dulled me at the same time.

'I thought you could come to my house and we could watch a couple of films.'

I laughed. 'That sounds normal...' He smiled at me. 'I would love too, let me just clear up these books and-' I was cut off by a blur of Jasper, flitting around my table and disappearing into the bedroom. One second the table was scattered by books and the other it was decidedly clean. I peered into my bedroom, and on my work desk there they sat, all neat and tidy. Jasper held my wand out to me.

'I need to change too... But please, don't ghost around and get me naked. That would just be weird.'

I listened to him laugh as I went to dress.

X

Jasper's idea of films and normal bordered on the criminally amusing. He had picked out movies that played on the clichés of magic and vampires, and I suppose he had to guess what might be cliché or downright wrong for me because he certainly was no authority on the subject, and we talked enthusiastically all the way through the films. His dark and cave like room, so unlike the rest of the Cullen's light and airy abode, was darkened further by the absence of light from his black out blinds.

'Some times at night,' he explained to me, 'to just sit or lay in the dark is like being asleep.'

We sat in front of his television on his sofa which put us in quite close proximity. 'That thing,' he said to me after one of the films ended, 'about vampires going crazy in close contact with humans is true, you know.'

Cheekily, I answered: 'That thing about wizards being driven mad by handsome vampires... it's true, you know.'

In the light from the static television I could see him smile winningly at me. 'Well, I hear the Doctor has come home.' He said, breaking the mood. I allowed him to pull me up and take me downstairs.

'I can hear Draco's stomach rumbling, Jasper.' The good Doctor said as we came down the stairs into the living room. 'Have you not thought about feeding him, Son?'

Jasper pushed a fleck of him humiliation onto me, to show he was sorry, and I guess he did that in lieu of flushed cheeks. 'It's okay, I'll eat when I get home.'

'Well let me drive you,' Carlisle said, removing his doctors coat and hanging it over a chair, 'I am quite eager to see what you have procured from the library.'

'Okay, thank you.' I replied.

'Are you sure you're okay with the rest of the Cullen's coming over too?' Carlisle asked me. I looked over at Jasper and smiled.

'Naturally.'

After the others got wind of Carlisle at my house, it wasn't very long until they all arrived and a light of hope shone through each and every pair of eyes. A sort of interested mood settled in my dining room, where we all sat milling around and settling down. I was quite surprised to see Edward and his girlfriend in attendance; his actual human girlfriend. She eyed me warily, at least I thought she did, until I noticed Jasper standing tightly behind me and her gaze slightly above mine.

'Don worry, Bella,' Jasper said. 'I'm not going to try anything, I swear. Draco would stop me anyway, wouldn't you Draco?' He asked, placing his hands on my shoulders, 'And Draco's found a potion to take away the blood-lust.'

'Reduce it, not remove it.' I said and that's when Bella did stray here eyes from Jasper and let them land on me. She gave me a weak smile and I held my hand out to her. 'Hi, I'm Draco Malfoy.'

'I know,' she replied, shaking my hand, 'Jasper can't stop thinking about you and Edward has to listen to it all the time.' Jasper growled behind me, so deep in his chest was the sound that I felt the briefest flicker of anger towards Edward myself, that ironed out all the discomfort of having such personal information shared so freely.

'Right!' Carlisle clapped his hands together and called attention. 'Draco, would you please tell us en mass what you have managed to find out already?'

I blanched a bit, and looked towards my mother who was standing looking at me with infinite pride. I considered whether she had lost the plot once again. Jasper nudged me in the back and it hurt enough to jolt me into talking. 'Well, I... I have found a potion to reduce the blood-lust in vampires.' I said weakly. I wasn't happy with the seven pairs of golden eyes turned on me, and Bella and my mothers eyes wistfully watching. 'It's called The Golden Fix. It takes about a month to make and it looks really expensive-'

'That's alright. We are willing to pay for your services, young Malfoy and for all of the ingredients.' Carlisle assured me. I gave him a fleeting smile.

'Are there any side effects?' Rosalie asked, her gaze turned to her husband, Emmett.

'The book didn't say so. I haven't had much time to go through and find out more, if anything at all on the potion or others that can work on Vampires but-'

'You don't need to.' Jasper said, his presence so close I could feel him. 'I'll try it out. I'm the one with the worst blood-lust here.'

A few of the vampires snickered. I ignored them and ploughed on. 'That's not an option, Jasper. As much as my curiosity would like to experiment on your magical nature, I don't want to harm any of you.'

'Experiment?' Alice asked with a slight dispritment.

'Draco would like to see whether the potions that are harmless to him, will be effective to us.' Edward said, and I wanted to turn to glare at him and to say get out of my mind. I left it.

'Well, I'd be up for that!' Emmett cried from beside Rosalie, who looked mildly interested.

'Oh no, Rosalie,' Edward chastised, 'You can't seriously be thinking about signing up with Mengele here, just because you are bored!'

'Yes, Edward... I am. If he agrees to it, I agree to it. Can you imagine a potion that would let us sleep? Or have children...?'

I wanted to say that the likelihood of those things happening was incredibly rare, and I knew immediately from having thought it that I had unwillingly given Edward ammunition, because he was smiling joyfully at Rosalie.

'Immortal children are not legal, Rosalie!' Alice hissed from across the room. 'The Volturi would be all over us!'

'Immortal children?' My mother asked. 'She's not talking about immortal children, as in babies turned into vampires. I think what Rosalie means to say is half human, half vampiric children.'

'That's impossible.' Edward said, glancing at me as he said it.

'No it's not,' my mother said fiercely, her warm toffee eyes flashing, 'My great-great grandfather was part vampire!'

'Absurd, Mrs. Malfoy! You would be-' Edward said, faltering in the process when he must have seen in her mind flashes of truth.

'Is it true, mum?' I asked quietly.

'Well you do prefer red meat to anything else, don't you sweetie. And we all know how you and I would disgust your father,' she turned to Carlisle, 'who's vegetarian. Soft stomach.' Giggles seemed to uplift everyone's spirits. Except Bella, who turned to me with a keen look of jealousy. I was sure of it. 'That's why your luminescent in the sunshine sweetie.' My mother said to me.

'You are a remarkable kind,' Carlisle said to me and my mother, who had come to stand closer to me. Jasper floated off somewhere, whilst I milled about talking to people, and for some odd reason I burned with missing his presence. I answered as many questions as possible, until I got decisively bored and excused my self from the evening, having gained at least two volunteers for trials of potions.

For Jaspers sake, I agreed to start on The Gold Fix the very next day, after some financial persuasion from Carlisle, who wrote me out a cheque for more money than I would possibly need, or charge him for. He told me to buy a car with the left overs.

With a weighty kind of excitement pooling around my solar plexus, I entered my bedroom and beelined for the balcony, where a lone figure sat reading by the out door fairy lights I had strung around the banister. Silver and honey tones came back at me in the half light. 'I thought you had gone home,' I said with earnest.

'I came up here to help you research. I thought two minds are better than one, and you did hire a lot of books.'

'Thank you.'

'Are you tired?' He asked, turning to me now to look deep in my eyes.

'Not at all,' I said, moving closer to him and leaning over his shoulder like he had done to me earlier that day. 'Ah, Moste Potente Potions. It's a good book.'

'It's quite easy to understand.'

'Did you think it wouldn't be?' I asked, curious. 'I have to send off an order for ingredients.' I called for my owl, with a loud "Jazmine!" and waited, quite aware of Jasper watching me.

'If you have the most difficulty controlling your blood-lust, how come you haven't tried to kill me yet?' I asked as the owl came swooping in from the east. I let her rest whilst I spelled some paper and a pen from inside my room

'I told you earlier; your reluctance to be afraid at what I could do to you takes away the fun of the kill.'

'That's quite morbid.' I said.

'No, what's morbid is you being so accepting of death.'

'Everyone dies- in one way or another-and I have seen worse ways to die than blood being sucked out by some God-like creature.'

'But you are young... so very, very young. It wouldn't be fair to loose life that early.'

'I have a theory,' I said in return, 'why the magical community has such a vast amount of vampires.'

'Please share.'

'I think that when a vampire sucks our blood, it goes just like any muggles blood does. Except when that vampire hits our magical core- where some say the gold veins run- it cant draw the life from us any more. Our magic can rejuvenate us way before we die, and transitions us into vampires with ease.'

'So you're not afraid of me, because of a theory?'

'In the war, we had the head Werewolf- Fenir Greyback- working for the Death Eaters. He hunted both wizards and muggles. Ninety percent of the muggles he bit- not ravaged- died. The ones that survived were kept as breeding tools or for entertainment values.

'But ninety percent of the wizards he bit survived.'

Jasper looked at me long and deeply and I shuffled away from his gaze. He grabbed my hand to stop me. 'Do you think your magic has something with not feeling how cold I am?'

'Cold?'

'Yes, ask Bella... She is always cold around Edward. Because to you, we feel cold. Well to humans we do.'

'I guess it's the vampire in me, eh?'

Jasper gave a humph of laughter. 'You don't think that I'm able to resist you, because your not able to die, do you?'

'I don't know why you can resist me, Jasper.'

'You smell so good, you know.'

I looked at him questioningly. 'Good? Like aftershave good or...?'

'Your human scent. It's like nothing I have ever smelt before. You smell...'

'Like magic?' I asked.

'Yes... I think so. When Narcissa was showing us those magic tricks, every different one had its own smell. But your smell is unique to you. There's that tinny smell of blood and the sweetness of flesh but underneath it all is the smell of something powerful and emotive.

'It's as if at moment you could explode in a swirl of aromatic feeling.'

'We do explode, sometimes...' I said and didn't like the implications those words had on my libido. 'We have magical outbursts when we are angry or on edge. I've had them when I have been over-exhausted or weak with fear.'

'What happens?' Jasper asked as his eyes clouded over with intensity.

'It's kind of subjective. There's a rule of thumb that says any elemental spells you have used in recent memory will collide with one another and dominate the space you are in. It has been recorded of wizards in remote areas causing landslides and earthquakes.

'You get them a lot as a kid, too.'

'Why?' Jasper asked, leading me around to sit on the table in front of him. I worried as he placed his hands on my hips, but he seemed quite intent on staying there and it seemed to ground me to the table in the most delicious way.

'Your magical core is growing and it tries to root itself into the centre of nature. That cant really happen until you utilise something organic to apply mother natures rules with. Like a wand.'

'Do all wizards use wands?'

'No. The Asians have a tendency to use chopsticks.' I said with delectable joy of seeing him start at the response.

'Chopsticks?'

'Oh yes, Jasper. And the Australians use Kangaroo femurs.'

I kept my face straight at thought of nothing but seriousness. I really wanted to have one over on him. 'What about the French?' He asked, awed and quiet and apparently quite disturbed.

'The ribs of a whore...' He looked at me trying to decipher if really, I was teasing him. He looked away.

'I'm not sure I want to know... but, what about the Africans?'

'Well... now, they use object less magic... very rooted in tribal arts. But they have to wash their hands in the dung of a local animal every day to cement their relationship with mother earth.'

I lost it then and burst out laughing. He looked at me strangely and soon a grin broke out on his beautiful face too. 'It isn't often when people get me like that.' He said. 'That was really good.'

And then he started laughing and the sounds washing over me unhinged my sense of propriety and reason. I watched him, barely noticing him loosing self control and digging his fingers into the flesh around my hips. When it finally kicked in how much it was hurting me, I yelped and flinched and he drew his hands away as one would from a boiling cauldron. 'Oh my! Draco... I'm so sorry!'

'It's alright Jasper,' I said as I lifted up my jumper and examined the livid red marks on my skin.

'Draco, I could have gone right through your flesh.'

I looked at him seriously as I fingered my wand until I held it at the right angle to administer a bruising reductive charm. 'And if you had,' I said, eyeing him seriously as I said it, 'it would have given my mother a delicious excuse to go see her suitor.'

'Pardon me?'

'A mind healer. He was our guide for the wizarding districts of Seattle for a couple of days. And he works at The Eddie Nervosa healing centre and everything would have been_ fine_.' Jasper watched me dubiously. 'Look, they have already healed themselves.'

'You really aren't a weak little human, are you?'

'Not one bit. I know how to incinerate you, remember?'

'Oh yes. And _I_ can drain your blood, don't forget that.'

'Ah, but you wouldn't.' I said, slapping him playfully on the shoulder. He took my hand mid flight and held it close to his mouth and kissed it.

'Neither would you.'


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer, as found in chapter one, applies.**

**Decrease of movement; switch transition**

Researching potions that could affect vampires became an intrinsic part of my life; so much so I withdrew from school, with bizarre support from my mother, to pursue my talents. It helped to spend a lot more time away from the buoyancy of the Cullen's and the condemning looks from Bella. I liked Bella for the most part, but whenever it became topical discussion about me and my magic, she seemed to watch me with the most hateful eyes.

I felt kind of sorry for her. She was the odd being out. But I dare not think that around the overprotective Edward and revised occlumency practice in my spare time. Wistfully, I hoped it would work to keep him out, for at times when the vampires got ahead of themselves with ideas of my magical ability, I didn't always want the room being notified of my inexpertise. Or lack, thereof, of Godliness. And it wasn't that I wanted to be adored, but I liked the positive attention.

I started brewing The Golden Fix. It started out at molten gold. One drip a day to sit in the bottom of a heated cauldron and then the wax of a candle burned under the full moon. It was all terribly gothic and I wasn't even sure this potion was going to work.

I didn't have much faith in my ability to brew it either.

Which is exactly why I didn't want Edward in my thoughts. Every time he caught a whiff of insecurity, he seemed to shine when he made it common knowledge that I was lacking confidence. He seemed hell bent on ruining this for everyone.

I knew exactly the day that came when he couldn't get inside my head any more; he walked into the Cullen's house, where Alice and I sat discussing what we -she- could do for Jasper's birthday. I was quite keen to avoid delving into the celebrations, for what it would look like to all those watching. And I didn't want to give myself or Jasper false hope for something that just wasn't going to happen; romance and passion. Not like that anyway, and not right away, and certainly not whilst I was being paid by his family to research vampires.

I frequently betrayed my conviction with straying thoughts of lips and tongues and potions to keep one safe from the risk of vampiric poison. And these kinds of things were starting to get in the way of my mental health; I feared people knowing the things that should be private to my own mind and certainly hated the visible inner battle. Occasionally I would keep myself awake at night with paranoid delusions of the Cullen's and Bella all sitting around laughing at my plight.

Alice wouldn't let up over designing a party for Jasper. 'We are going to have some of our friends from Denali down.' She was saying as Edward walked through the door. I wondered to myself what kind of friends she meant, but Edward didn't do his usual thing of answering my thoughts. He turned to Alice and looked at her quizzically.

'I don't think Jasper would like a fuss made out of him.'

_Surely not, you invading prick!_ I thought to myself. Edward then turned to me and I waited for the onslaught of over communicated vulgarities.

'Have you stopped thinking?' He asked me. I looked up towards his messy copper hair and thought loud and clear about how he shouldn't let Bella get overheated with her ministrations. 'Draco?' He asked quite seriously.

'No, no. I'm thinking.' I smirked at him and turned to Alice. 'You were saying?'

Edward interrupted Alice; 'Isn't it past your bedtime?'

'Oh no, I'm as high as a kite on Pepper Up Potion.' I said, smirking again but this time with sincere cruelty. I was glad he couldn't hear me rambling about how my services were going to go towards this ungracious prick. I was glad he couldn't hear the sorrow of wasted teenage years.

'Ignore him, Draco.' Alice said to me. 'He's pissed off that being immortal is coming between him having a normal relationship with Bella.'

Edward growled low in his throat at Alice and I giggled like a school girl gleefully. Strictly speaking, being between two sparking vampires is not practical common sense, but it excited the hell out of me. 'Leave off, Alice. You don't know what you're talking about.' Edward stalked away.

I wasn't very keen on being the source of so much irritation between the Cullen's. It seemed that my presence in their lives was breaking a very sacred destiny. Alice would say that as someone's decisions change, so does their futures, and by some miracle decisions were changed with resultant immigration of the Malfoy's to Forks. But her words were no comfort for me, who often delighted in the dangerous rows that would break out between the vampires, or sulked at their existence.

The Cullen's really did have me questioning my sanity. The intoxicating feeling of living on a knife edge had me indulging so heavily in my quest for knowledge of magical beings, I found myself a few times wishing I had paid more attention in Care of Magical Creatures and Defence.

'I need to go to Seattle,' I said absently to Alice.

'I knew you would say that,' she said superiorly. I pouted at her. 'Do you want to go now?' She asked quite eagerly. I worried my lip between my teeth. 'Oh come on, I'll drive you!'

'You have school, remember...'

'I do indeed.' She said as if she was saying "so what". I nodded at her in submission.

'That would be great.' I stood up from the white couch and ruffled her brown pixie hair. 'What would I do without you, m'dear?'

She smiled wide at me. 'You'd just be an arrogant, British toffee!'

I didn't quite understand her meaning, but the friendly fire was enough to have me trying to chase her for a few seconds before the impossibility of it wore my determination out. 'Come,' she demanded, taking my arm and wrapping it over her shoulders, 'let's go. We can book into a hotel and buy you clothes there.'

'Alice, I think I need to tell my mum I'm off for a few days.'

'Can you phone her?'

I nodded and she gave me her cell phone to use. 'It's under Malfoy.' She explained and I fumbled the whole way to the car trying to figure it out, finally getting to the number and quickly telling my mother what I was up too. I didn't feel rebellious, like a teenager should; I just felt longing for Jasper's cool, collected presence as if that was my rebellion.

I dozed off against the pulsating window, the road beneath us mapped out by a tapping to my head. Sharply woken up by a prod from Alice, I glared and stretched whilst she said: 'Wake up, pretty boy!'

'Are we here?' I asked with kind amusement. 'Or have you just woken me up because you need the company?'

'As a vampire, Mr. Malfoy, we don't feel time as you do.'

Alice blanked out for a few seconds, then. As a sign for jinxes and curses, the glazed eyes and vacant look of Alice's visions had taken some time to get used too. 'Course you don't.' I agreed, stepping out of the car and walking sleepily to the front of the hotel.

I looked up. _The Alexis_, said the sign and I wondered how wonderful Alice's choice would be. She shuffled next to me and I bit back the urge to ask her what she had seen. It wasn't polite, in my eyes, to ask her to share things so personal and to be honest, I didn't want her to reveal anything about _me_.

In our room, Alice turned to me. 'What did you need to come to Seattle for?' She asked. 'And don't you need to be at home to brew The Golden Fix?'

I humphed. 'I hadn't thought about that.'

'What will happen to it?' She queried with quaint dismay. I grimaced and walked towards the bathroom with a kind of pompous strut.

'It will spoil, I suppose.' The door slid into the catch and my hands worked the lock.

And then I let myself freak out.

I was intensely aware of how dangerous my liaisons with the vampires were becoming, and how my research could affect their entire lives and further more how many people were relying on it. They could tear me to pieces if they found me guilty of failing and almost no one would know of it. Because these vampires weren't registered by magical signature...

_These vampires weren't registered by magical signature._

They weren't magical vampires at all! There was no guarantee that anything I found out would be useful at all.

I had read the books I had hired out from The Olympic Library, which seemed reluctant to tell me anything at all about vampires. There was a wealth of information about werewolves and Jarvey dragons.

It all seemed so... geographical.

I worried myself all through showering. I could see brief flashes of Jasper and Alice's faces when I told them my upsetting news; that there really, really was less of a guarantee that anything I thought would work, would. And how my reluctance to try my potions or spells on them had doubled, even tripled, since walking into the bathroom.

I wasn't too keen on telling any of the Cullen's this information, but the smug looks on Bella and Edward's faces when I released the news cemented my feelings of guilt and dread. Never before, not even earlier that day when it was funny, was I so appreciative of my ability to block my mind.

But Jasper would _feel_ the decomposing faith. _Oh God_, I groaned.

I composed myself as best I could before leaving the bathroom. Alice stood looking at me with painfully kind eyes and I smiled back, grateful that she would read my facial qualms as bashfulness for the half naked state I stood in.

I was right, for in seconds she was holding out clothes for me. 'You were in there such a long time.' She started explaining and I went and hid behind the door to of the bathroom to change into the pyjamas she gave me. 'So I decided to go into town and alleviate a shop of some of their stock.'

I smiled rebelliously to myself. I knew I should feel wrong for stealing, but it didn't feel the same magical to muggle. Magical to magical was another thing altogether for me. 'Ah, ridding people of their livelihood?' I asked teasingly.

'I hardly think the Gap ill be at a loss for these.' She said as I came out of the bathroom, quite pleased with my illegal wears.

X

'What did you do to the bathroom last night?' Alice asked me as I sat on the bed with a new set of books laid out in front of me.

I let my eyes stray to her from _A Guide to Washington's Weirdest_, which was turning out to be amusing yet not at all helpful on my quest, and asked her what she meant.

'I could hear the shower and your breathing, your heartbeat too, but then it all just disappeared as if it was never there in the first place. And I wasn't sure I wanted to disturb you, so I decided that if you weren't out fifteen minutes after I got back with the clothes then I was going to break the door down.'

I laughed because any competent witch or wizard would have realised the effects of a silencing charm and would never have asked what it was; Alice's ignorance amused me. 'I used a charm that makes anyone outside I construct it around, unable to hear anything within that space.'

'_Wow_...' She breathed. 'You know, I've always considered it to be taboo to ask you to do magic. I know Carlisle asked your mother, but he seems to get away with a lot of things. I guess I wasn't sure how you'd react...' She grew silent for a while and patiently I waited to see if she would say anything more. 'But what else can you do?' She asked in a rush.

'That would be a very long and very tiring demonstration, Alice.'

'So you can do a lot then?' She inquired with awe. I nodded my head. 'Well what was the first thing you learnt, can I see that?'

'Oh, that would be a hard one. The first spell I perfected was on the train to Hogwarts and it was a hex.'

'As in an affliction?'

'Yes.'

'Who did you use it on?'

'On my friend.' I said, smirking.

'Well what's the worst that could happen?' I didn't like her semantics. I shook my head, no. 'I'm asking you, as my friend, to show me something _cool_!' I ignored her whilst my head began to spin with the temptation. 'Please, Draco... nothing will happen that's bad.'

'We don't know that, Alice.' I said as I returned my focus to my book. I pretended that Sewer Goblins were infinitely more interesting than her pleading. _Please, please, please..._ she kept on saying until my temptations got the better of me and I flung a stinging hex at her. I hadn't even looked up from the text in front of me, but the cry of pain she emitted was enough for me to know I had had got her.

'I'm hungry,' I said to her, ignoring her sudden giddy happiness, 'I'm going to have a _rare_ steak.'

I smirked all the way down to the restaurant, glancing out of the window with gleeful satisfaction at the stars. There in the sky, silver dots rained down on us all like beacons of trust and for a second my heart lurched to be near Jasper.

X

The library staff were becoming less and less helpful on each returning visit. About three days into my stay in Seattle, I returned all the books I had loaned, and when I was met with despising stares from the staff I made my decision that Seattle was of no help to me on the vampire department.

I held a heady disinclination to acquire information about vampires in this strange and foreign land. I was becoming more and more inclined to call upon help from Britain, which certainly seemed to have more relations with vampires, at least visibly.

I wasn't even sure where I mentally stood on this pursuit of helping the Cullen's. I knew it would mean a lot to them to ease their burning thirst. _It would help Jasper_. And any other information I garnered on the way was a bonus for their broadening horizons.

It also pleased me to think of the possibility of making a career out of my talents. A nice black market trade, I thought. From the little I got out of my mother on the subject, it was clear that vampires were more ostracised than werewolves. Try as I might, she forbid me to ask any more, claiming she didn't know anything other than what she had already told me.

I had a despising thought that her lack of authority on the subject was due to my father.

I told Alice as I ate breakfast in our room that I thought I had exhausted Seattle for the time being. She seemed to brighten at the possibility, even though she was reluctant to let me stop studying.

'I need a couple of days to think.' I said.

'Cant you speed up your thoughts with a spell?'

I looked at her reproachfully. 'You can't do everything with magic,' I said to her, 'and if there is such a spell, I don't know of it.'

'Honestly, what did they teach you at school?'

I grinned blackly. 'Oh, nothing much. I learned most of my hexes through Dark Magic articles.'

'Oh here we go,' she said, 'I'm the snake, so hear me hiss!'

I started. 'When ever have you heard me talk about Slytherin?'

'Slytherin?' She questioned.

'Yes, Slytherin, my house at school. I'm sure you can acknowledge what mascot my house held?'

'A snake.' She said as if it was old news.

'Yes.' I felt that onslaught of paranoia; I imagined all the Cullen's sitting around and laughing about me and for a second I wondered whether I would have to try a crucio on them _all_.

'It was just a good guess, Draco.' She said, trying to calm me down. 'You need to relax, you have gone red in the face.'

I glowered at her, 'You know what?' I asked. 'Sometimes I wonder whether you and your family are just having me on.'

'You are so platinum.' She growled at me. 'So bloody self important, you know that?

'It's like just because you have magic, you're above us all. I bite my tongue when you're reproachful to Edward because it's funny to see him so off balance, but you hedge everything with your _abilities_ like it's the most important thing in the world.'

I suddenly felt embarrassingly like the Ministry, but my anger flared over my humiliation. 'That's rich coming from a vampire that thinks it's okay to thieve.'

I felt empowered for a second. 'Well please remove those articles from your person and I'll take them back where they came!' She said, making a menacing move towards me.

'And I'll just stop brewing The Golden Fix, shall I?'

She looked so angry for a second that I felt a thrill of power over come me. I did feel important; enough that it was okay for me to throw caution to the wind around such predators. Alice started laughing though, and my fury diminished with her tinkling sound. 'We shouldn't fight about anything, should we?'

'You're just saying that because I've threatened to take the potion away,' I argued with a weak edge to my tone.

'That's unfair and you know it. If you haven't noticed already, Draco, my family and I _like_ having you around.' I looked into her face and noticed a truth laying there. I wanted to believe her as much as she wanted me to believe. I let my guard down and allowed her words to comfort me, because I did have fun with the Cullen's, outside of the research I was doing for them.

'Bella and Edward don't like me.' I said. I crossed my arms defiantly, even though she had already won me over.

'Look,' she started to reason, sitting on the bed in front of me, 'It's hard for them at the moment. Bella holds this incredible secret that she can't share with anyone, except us vampires. And all she really has is us, because none of the other kids at school want to associate with her because of Edward being a Cullen.

'And Edward is trying to hold together his want for her... He lusts after her blood, knowing that the high he would receive from her would be the grandest he has ever known and will ever know, and it hurts him to not be able to be a normal teenage boy. Even for one day, just for her.'

'And those are the reasons that I should sympathise with them?' I asked with kindling indignation.

'Next to you, Draco,' Alice said softly, 'Bella is further cemented as the human. She is the only one in her group of friends who isn't gifted. And in Edwards eyes, it must be hard to watch a normal kid walk around with the kind of glitter you possess. He fears that Bella only likes him because of his immortality, and all the fun stuff that comes with it, but you bleed like she does so why wouldn't she want someone like that?'

'So you think they are jealous of me?'

'I know it, Draco.' She said firmly. I wondered if she was trying to placate me, but I held my tongue from saying so. 'Come on, let's check out of this place. Let's go home.'

X

I couldn't rest at home. I had given Alice orders to tell the Cullen's not to come by asking for information for a couple of days, but just as they lust for blood I lusted for their presence. I missed their infectious energy that helped spawn me on in aiding them and as I sat alone for a couple of days, busying myself with mindless tasks, I started to itch to get back to it.

I also started to resent the lack of wizarding information on the web.

So on the third day of being home at Forks, I called Alice with resignation and asked her to help me find something fun to do. She told me she would come pick me up and it would be a surprise. I wondered whether she had seen that I would call, but it had become common knowledge between us that I didn't ask and she didn't tell.

We drove for a couple of miles in Emmett's truck. I felt small in the massive car even though I kind of liked the jostling around as we drove off road. Lowering myself out of the car, I came face to face with the clan of Cullen's.

Each and every one of them had humoured eyes. Behind Edward stood Bella, who looked at me warily and for a second I wanted to shout at her to stop being silly; I had gone through a _war_, for Merlin's sake! What was romantic about that. But then I noticed Jasper, who stood looking at me with an unmatched intensity that whilst making me feel weird, also warmed me from the core.

Emmett cried hello to me with brotherly affection and Rosalie ran to give me a hug. Carlisle looked keenly at me, his eyes following as I said hello to every one in turn.

We stood in the middle of a meadow, covered on all sides by tall imposing trees. 'How far are we from muggles?' I asked the group.

'Oh the humans can't see us here.' Jasper said, moving towards me. I thought I saw him twitch to touch me but he held his distance. I held my composure.

'Do they come here?' I asked with precision.

'Now and again, but it's pretty hard to get here for them.' Jasper said.

'We just _drove_ here!' I said, pointing towards the car.

Emmett came towards me, all huge and grinning. 'Off the road, silly. We know the path because we know it, if you follow me. But to them, the humans, it's all a bit trickier.'

'You sound worried, Son.' Carlisle said to me, resting a hand lightly on my shoulder.

'I'm not worried, as such. I just thought it would be a nice open space to fly in.'

_'Fly?'_ Edward asked with incredulity.

'Yes, fly my broom.' I said, hard.

'Your... broom?' He replied.

'I have to see this.' Emmett said from beside me.

Jasper looked at me with ferocity.

'I think we should begin.' Alice said, bouncing away from the group into the middle of the open space. 'Draco, would you come here?' She asked me.

I moved as fast as I could. Beside her, I looked over the group who now stood to face us. 'Okay, what's the surprise?' I asked after a couple of agonising moments of silence.

'Do that stinging hex on me.' She said with clarity, so everyone could hear.

'Oh no,' I said defensively, 'I am not going to _hurt_ you in front of a coven of vampires!'

'It's alright, Draco. You wouldn't die anyway, remember?' Edward said mysteriously.

I must have been startled enough that the paranoia caused me to loose grip on my magic, because gold sparks flew from my wandless fingers. The ground singed where they hit and I was acutely aware of Bella's eyes wide and frightened. Jasper growled low and hard at Edward, though he visibly cooled when Carlisle placed a hand on his shoulder.

'Sorry, but no.' I said with conviction. Alice started to do that begging thing again and the flare of temptation was undeniably hard to resist. 'Anyway, I could get in serious trouble for performing magic in front of a muggle...' I said, pointing to Bella.

'Don't call her that.' Edward said.

'In front of someone devoid of magic.' I said bitterly and the flash of irritation across Edward and Bella's faces was enough to make the insult worth the backlashing whack from Alice across the shoulder. 'I can't reach there with my wand to heal, you know.' I said to her whilst she smiled at me, letting me know she had put me in my place.

I personally thought the idea of insulting someone by calling them muggle was a far cry from what could be considered immoral in _my_ world.

'How would anyone know that you had done magic in front of humans?' Rosalie asked me.

'Well, I'm not quite sure they would know,' I faltered. All eyes looked at me hopefully now. I was unsure why; they had all seen magic from my mother. 'But if they found out, I could go to Azkaban.'

'That's the prison your father's in, isn't it?' Edward said, happy in his bite mark.

'Uhuh,' I agreed, using every fibre of my being to sound detached from the implications Edward had hit me with. _Mother must have told him_, I thought.

'Just do it, blondie.' Emmett said.

'Oh go on, Draco. We want to see what happens.' Rosalie explained.

'I saw it,' Edward said, gesturing to Alice, 'And it wasn't that interesting.'

I lost myself again then, reflexively whipping my wand from my back pocket and pointing it at Edward, all the while screaming _stupefy_! and watched, horrified ,as a red beam of light struck the vampire in the middle of the chest and knocked him clean over.

Flashes and blurs crossed my vision as the Cullen's all moved to check on Edward. 'You've killed him!' Bella was screaming, launching herself across the green at me. 'You _**fucker**_! You've killed Edward!'

'I have not!' I yelled back, my wand pointing at her stalking form. I made wide birth of her and ran beside the Cullen's, who were just staring at Edward and unmoving. 'Rennervate.' I said quietly, flicking my wand. I hadn't been prepared for Edward to not _move _straight away.

My heart started to palpitate with fear.

And then Edward was on his feet a second later.

He was looking at me and smiling. The biggest smile I had ever had him direct at me.

'That was incredible.' He said.

'What happened?' Carlisle asked, as I collapsed onto the ground and sat cross legged, dumbfounded and brittle. Jasper moved a little closer to me.

'Nothing. Nothing happened,' I felt a burst of indignation, 'I was knocked out cold.'

I snapped my head up. 'You mean it worked?' I asked.

'Was that what it was supposed to do?' He asked me.

'Yes. Exactly what it was supposed to do.'

'Do some more!' Cried Emmett. I didn't really feel like it.

I turned my gaze to Edward again. 'Do you feel okay?' I asked him sincerely.

'Fine.'

'Do me a favour,' I asked, 'I want to test you, to make sure you're alright. Will you run the length of this meadow for me, a couple of times?'

Edward took off at once. 'Another one, another one!' Emmett crowed, louder and more hyper than before.

'No, not until Edward is back.'

Edward fluttered around us enough times that I got impatient and asked him to stop. I was feeling strangely decomposed, my hands dropped in my lap like an ill person. Coming back into himself fully, I looked at him and asked: 'And?'

'A hundred percent.' He was still smiling. I wondered whether a crucio would sort that out.

'Now?' Emmett asked. 'I want to be next.'

'Well what do you want me to do?' I asked him dubiously.

'I don't know!' He said, bounding closer. 'Anything.'

I considered it for a moment or two. The possibilities were endless. 'Well if he can't come up with anything for you,' Rosalie said to her husband, 'then I'm switching places.'

_Ingenious,_ I thought to myself. I looked up and smiled so wickedly, I thought the devil would come up and shake my hand. Considering my present circumstances, it was a possibility. I made Rosalie and Emmett switch clothes. With a quick flick of my wrist, Emmett was wearing a dark blue cashmere dress, and a purple scarf whilst his wife wore his jeans and shirt. 'There,' I said, 'two for the price of one.'

It should have been embarrassing for them, but they laughed so hard I thought they would make it hail.

'Oh goodness, that was funny.' Alice said to me.

'Who's next?' I asked the group, looking up to them from my place on the ground. I was unaware that Jasper had sunk himself next to me, until I couldn't find him in the crowd. 'Carlisle?' I offered.

'An honour,' he said to me with a half bow. 'I want one of the ones we can feel though. I do not want to end up wearing someone else's clothes.'

'I'm tempted now you say that.' I thought for a moment. 'Actually, Carlisle, what did you say?'

He began to repeat himself and I muttered a silencio his way. His deep voice cut off instantly, even though his mouth still moved. A collective astonishment rung around the room. 'He says he can't feel it,' Edward relayed for Carlisle. 'He's asking to do something else.'

I removed the charm and pointed my wand at Carlisle and cast the same stinging hex I had hit Alice with in irritation. The same one that brought me here, into this crazy lot of immortals who wanted me to hurt them. Carlisle howled for a second with the effect of it.

'Do me!' Emmett said, looking truly weird in the stretched dress. I did as he asked.

'Anyone else?'

'I'll have a go,' Esme said quietly. I gave her one, right in the stomach and she jumped about five feet in the air. Everyone laughed.

'How about you Jasper,' Alice asked, 'Do you want a go?'

I looked over to him and he smiled, 'I might.'

I changed tactic and aimed my wand at him. He sat very still, much like I had sat in dismay before, and waited. I laughed as he became covered in gold, iridescent bubbles that no matter how much he wafted them away, wouldn't pop.

Finally uncovered from the bubbles, except a few of the smaller ones that sat in his hair, he looked at me deep into my eyes. I flushed at the intimacy of it and quickly looked up to the others, who had the fortune to be looking after the non-popping bubbles.

'How about you, Bella?' I asked, looking round at her. She gazed down at me and asked me whether any of it would hurt her.

I cast a cheering charm on her, which must have been strong in nature, because she didn't stop laughing for two minutes. 'That felt good!' She said in merry spirits, smiling happily.

'It was all wonderful,' Carlisle said. 'Thank you.'

'Not at all... my pleasure.' And I meant it, too. 'You will let me know if there is any side effects, wont you?' I asked. Bella looked wistfully alarmed. 'There wont be any on you,' I chastised, 'I know that for a fact.'

'We'll let you know,' Emmett said, 'We'll remind Bella why she was so upset with you fifteen minutes ago.'

I burst with laughter. 'Do you want to go flying?' Jasper asked, leaning in close to my ear. My eyes were still focused on the other Cullen's and the blush that crept from the seductive tone Jasper used, must have been quite telling to his family.

_Who would of heard it anyway..._

'Yes, I do.'

Jasper, in all his honey haired glory, looked up to Alice with burning lucidity and said: 'Keep him safe.' However his head was still so close to mine that the words washed over me and caused my conviction of staying neutral on the topic of Jasper to crease and crumble.

He was gone in a flash, leaving behind his invigorating scent and an imprint of his own excitement and longing on me. I sat there in front of the Cullen's feeling like a child.

X

'It's okay, you can go now Alice.' Jasper said as he came into view from the West with my broom in his hand. 'Your mother told me to tell you that she is going away for a couple of days, Draco.'

I tipped my head to him in question. 'She said she was going to see Healer Crane?' I asked.

'That'd be the one.'

'Thank you for waiting with me, Alice.' I said to her as she rose from her place beside me on the ground. I could see as she stood that the back of her skirt was sodden from the ground, and I wasn't sure how I hadn't noticed my own backside getting wet. I threw a drying charm at her, which she barely noticed, and did the same to myself as I stood.

'I'll see you later, Draco.' Alice said. Waving over her shoulder, she said goodbye to Jasper. She got in the Jeep and drove away.

I moved towards Jasper, who held out my broom to me. I took it, straddled the handle and kicked off into the air. The sudden whoosh of air going past me made my belly flop around; the adrenalin kicked off on cue and I leaned forward to lap the open space.

'That thing goes fast,' Jasper called to me from below. His hair looked slightly windswept and I guess he had been lapping with me.

'Hard time keeping up?' I shouted down. The breeze lifted me and dropped me like an ocean ebbs and flows against the shore.

'Yeah, right.' He said, running to the tree nearest me and ascending its trunk with rapidity. Once he was at my level he stopped and watched me hovering for a few seconds. 'I'll race you around the field, if you like?'

I grinned. 'Leaping from tree to tree?' I asked him.

'Sure. Why not?'

I laughed loud and clear into the air. 'On three... one... two...THREE!!!' I shot off around the clearing, leaning so far forward on my broom, my chest lay flat against the handle and for aerodynamics, kicked my feet up against the brush of the broom. Jasper was whooping through the trees and I could see him from the corner of my eye; we were almost neck and neck, one of us occasionally getting the better of the other.

As we made one lap, I swooped into the trees and started zig zagging in and out around him as he jumped from tree to tree at high speed. I flew into the middle of the clearing, pulling loops and feints. I decided to see whether I could scare the life out of him and shot down so fast at the ground with a corkscrew turn.

I heard him yell across the field.

As I pulled up away from the ground he was laughing and encouraging me on, but the sight of him so far below me made me want to be down there with him.

I was out of breath as I settled on the ground. 'That was incredible.' He said to me. 'So much fun.'

'I had a ball!' I cried through heavy breath. The sound I made was hot and fiery.

'You feel phenomenal right now.' Jasper said, coming closer to me and standing but an inch away. 'Come stay at mine, whilst your mother is away.'

I lost myself again for a moment, swaying in my own emotions projected right back at me from the vampire. 'No, I can't.' I said.

'Why not?' He purred. I'm sure he doubled the feeling to influence me, but I pushed it away with gritty effort.

'Because I don't think it's appropriate.' I said. 'Besides, I would rather like some of my _own_ time at the moment.'

Jasper looked affronted. 'I would give you your space.' He scoffed to show his indignation. 'Besides, I didn't mean to come over to stay with me, I meant you to come over so you were not alone.'

'I'll be fine Jasper, seriously. I need to figure out some things.'

'What things?' He questioned, throwing his curiosity onto me.

'Would you stop doing that?'

'I can't help it,' he said, 'it's hard not to let you know what I'm feeling.'

'It confuses me,' I said. 'I have to figure out vampiric relations with the magical world.' I explained.

'Why?'

'Because I don't want to go to jail for doing something I shouldn't be. And if I do happen to practice illegalities, I want to do it under the radar.'

'What's illegal?' He asked me stiffly.

'I don't know yet,' I said, stretching out my arms in front of me, 'but these are the kinds of things you do need to know when dealing with non-wizards.

'And there's things I want to figure out; like why the Volturi apparently have never heard of the wizarding world, and why Carlisle hasn't either. And why we have so many vampires in Britain, but in all the time you Cullen's have been travelling the world you haven't once run into a magical vampire.'

I stood there for a few moments deep in thought. 'You're uncertain about something.'

'Yes, I am.' I said, turning to look at him full in the face. 'I have to go back to England.'

And loathe as I was to admit it, I did have to go back to England because I knew the government there. I had a wealth of information just waiting for me to use at Malfoy Manor and I could easily call upon the Hogwarts library. Hindering in my resolve, however, was the fact that I was going to need somebody's help.

_Hermione Granger..._

X

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	4. Chapter 4

**Bit of a short one here. Not much action.**

**O-ho! Let us wait graciously for the next chapter!**

X

**Ain't got the slang, but you got the face to play the role. You can play with me.**

X

'Mum, I think I need to go back to Britain.'

'Oh?' My mother asked airily as she dotted about the kitchen to the tune of the cooking channel. I stood in front of the television and tried to convey the seriousness of the situation by glaring at her.

'I need to study vampires.'

'That's good,' she replied, shooing me away from the tele.

'It could be dangerous, going back to Britain.' I said with a grave resolution in my voice.

'Do what we always do, Dear,' she said, 'go under the radar.'

'Mum,' I started, slightly alarmed, 'this is different; we are in exile. I will be willingly committing a crime by going back home.'

She frowned; I wasn't sure whether it was at me or at the instructions from the show she was watching. 'Draco, you are going back there to study. I hardly think it will be frowned upon.'

I glared at her then, wondering where the hard-nosed Narcissa I had grown up with had gone. An image of a stone, dreary building wafted through my minds eye, and a man with long blonde hair sat there, confined to punishment for misdeeds. 'I'm going to study dark creatures.' I bit out through my teeth. 'Don't you think the Ministry might look upon that as intent to start violence and crime?'

'You are overreacting, Draco.' She said, stirring blueberries into her mixture. 'You must remember, we have the support of Harry Potter.'

'Could you at least try and stop me?' I asked, resigned to the lack of astonishment I had somewhat relied on my mother giving.

She stopped and creased her brow, spatula held aloft in her hand and her apron stained with mixings of food. 'And why would I want to do that, Draco?'

'I don't know, because you're my mother?' I asked weakly. 'I guess I think it's such a big decision, to go away on my own like that.'

'Don't be silly, Darling. You'll be fine.'

I sighed as she shooed me away from the television. 'Can I stay at the Manor?'

'If you want too.' She said, eyes wide as she copied the stirring on her programme.

'Can I have some money?' I asked cheekily.

'I'll transfer you some for when you go.'

'I'm going in a week mum,' I said.

'How are you getting to the airport?' Mother asked me, her focus still quite apparent and it wasn't on me.

'I think I'll ask one of the Cullen's to drive me.' I said, already knowing that Alice or Jasper would leap at the chance to take me.

'How long will you be gone?' She asked slowly, loosing her words in her concentration as she moved around the central island.

'I don't know mum.'

'Well you better go pack for a long stay.' She said, pouring her bowl of mixture into a cake tin.

I turned and made my way to the staircase.

X

'Hey, Draco!' Carlisle called as I wove my way through the forest towards his house on my broom. 'How are you today? Excited for your trip home?'

'A bit nervous actually, Carlisle. How are you?'

'Very well, Son. Come in.'

I flew to the front door and deliberated flying into the house, but I wasn't sure it would take too well. Then again, this was the house of vampires who purposely had me throw stinging hexes at them, so one could never be sure what they would or wouldn't care for.

I was met with the entire Cullen clan, all stood beneath a banner that said _Bon Voyage_ in large gold lettering. Balloons and flowers decorated the room and Alice had her impish smile focused on me. 'Hey, Draco!' They all called to me.

I smiled in return. 'We got you going away presents.' Alice said happily.

'Open ours first,' Edward said. I smiled at Bella as she pushed a small package into my hands, wrapped in paper with pumpkins and hags all over it. Halloween paper, I guessed. I lifted up the taped flaps gently. Inside was a beautiful wallet like holder. 'It's a passport cover,' Edward said. I ran my fingers over the brightly colored design of arty flowers. It took me a moment to realise that they had taken one of the pictures I had given Jasper, having given him quite a few, and had it edited and printed onto the cover.

'It's amazing,' I said, trying to not let on that I didn't have a passport.

'Mine next,' Jasper said, handing me a small square box. I opened the lid and inside sat a British passport. I opened it and found there to be my picture- lord only knew how they got one like that- and my name printed under the plastic covering. 'You have a green card too. All illegal, of course, but we found out that you normally confuse the airport staff into letting you on the plane. We thought this would go a lot smoother.'

'And who exactly did you find that out from?' I asked, with a knowing smile. I mouthed a thank you to Jasper and he shot me back a warm feeling.

'Your mother was quite helpful,' Carlisle said, coming into view, 'and this our going away present.'

He and Esme had given me plane tickets, for which I was most grateful at that moment; having had none myself. 'Thank you so much.'

'And we got you the best present of all!' Emmett said, coming over with large presence. Rosalie was cradled at his side, almost hitched on his hip. He handed me a set of keys; 'It's the keys to our London apartment.'

'Oh my Merlin!' I said, 'Thank you!'

'Use it for as long as you need,' Rosalie said with a truly warming smile, 'I think you will like it.'

'And finally...' Alice said, coming up behind me, 'it's my turn.' She handed me a card. 'You have to open it when you get to the airport... first thing, okay?' I nodded in agreement.

'Right, Draco.' Emmett said, coming towards me, 'We better head off.'

'Hang on a minute,' Bella said, 'you brought no luggage with you.'

'Oh I did,' I said with a smirk, 'It's all in my pocket. Shrinking charms.'

I said goodbye to everyone, lots of cuddling and such, and walked out the door with Emmett and Jasper.

The drive to SeaTac airport was long to me. I watched through the window as the countryside turned into metropolitan city and could feel my eyelids drooping with the drag of traveling. 'You better open that card, mate.' Emmett said to me as we pulled into the busy lane of cars beside the terminal entrance.

I flicked the envelope open with my fingers and pulled out a card with a picture of all the Cullen's on the front. Inside, Alice had written a quick message to me.

_Dear Draco,_

_As you go away, I give you the gift of company: My best friend, Jasper._

_Look after each other,_

_I love you both,_

_Alice_

I looked towards the front of the car, where Jasper and Emmett were sitting. Emmett glanced at me in the rear view mirror; 'Isn't this a bit dangerous?' I asked.

'You mean because of the bloodlust and such, right?' Emmett queried. I glared at him because of his jovial tone. 'You'll look after him, won't you.' He stated, his gaze turning away from me.

I glowered and started to panic. 'Calm down Draco, it will be fine.' Jasper tried soothing.

'I was _supposed_ to be doing this on my own!' I shouted, angry now and with a lot of determination I blocked all of his calming influence. Jasper turned so he could look over the seat at me. I narrowed my eyes. 'What if you loose control of yourself and attack someone?'

'I won't. I'll be fine.' He said calmly.

'You don't even realise what I have to do, do you?' I asked with venom in my voice.

'No. Tell me, what do you have to do?'

I stuttered for a bit. What was it that I really had to do, that would be hindered by the accompaniment of a vampire? 'I have to go to the Ministry,' I lied, 'And make it look like I am doing this out of personal interest, rather than from an affiliation with vampires.'

'So...? I don't come to the Ministry with you. What else?'

I pouted a bit. 'I am not supposed to be in Britain at the moment; they made us leave. The second they get whiff of a walkabout Malfoy, they will have me under surveillance. They will know of you as soon as they know of me.'

'Well if you're not supposed to be in Britain, it's hardly going to matter that you are there and with a vampire.' Emmett said reasonably. I wanted to sting him so hard and fast, because what he said almost made sense.

'No.' I said with clear resolution. 'It is not going to happen.'

I could feel a pulse of emotion knocking on my defences; I pushed harder and harder against it. _This is not going to happen,_ I thought to myself, _not now and_ _not with a vampire. I will not start to __**like**__ a vampire. Not like __**that!**_

'If you don't stop doing that, Jasper, I swear I will get out of this car and never talk to you again.' I spat as the throbbing became pronounced and fierce. I know I should have been clued up on how my rejection could of brought about the demon inside of him, and how he could have taken it out on me, but he looked at me with puppy eyes and it broke my heart. 'Fuck!' I shouted at my loss of conviction; I was going to die because of these vampires and I **didn't** care.

One way or another it was all going to end because of them. Either the Ministry would have their say and lock me up for good or I would take it too far by playing with these fiends and one would snap. I thought of Edward; I had thought he was most likely to loose it with me but now I wasn't so sure. It could quite easily be Jasper who floundered.

'What if you get out of control and I'm the only one around?' I asked him. He reached out to touch me and I flinched away. 'This is serious, Jasper.'

'You wont die, remember?'

'I don't know that for certain!'

'We'll find out, won't we?' He asked. I shuddered at the double entendre. Even though self-preservation was last on my list of priorities, I certainly didn't want to test the boundaries. Or did I?

I wasn't so sure of anything anymore, except finding out about vampires. Not that long ago, I thought my mother had lost it but it was me all along who had rejected gravity. I no longer had a hold on the world I lived in.

'Look,' Emmett said, 'we all had this idea. We thought you could do that thing to Jasper, that you did to Edward, when you're on the plane. That way it's less likely anything untoward will happen.'

'You mean like stepping off a plane full of massacred people?' I asked, happier now with a plan under my belt. 'Okay, okay.' I said in submission, 'You can come with me...'

X

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	5. Chapter 5

Authors note: As some of you may have seen already, this story will contain mentions of Male Pregnancy as well as mental disorders and eating disorders. I hope I approach these subjects with taste and care.

This chapter is dedicated to njferrell and neverfall16.

**God is a woman, and my mom she is a witch!**

X

It was tipping it down when we arrived at London Heathrow airport. Jasper was quiet and collective as we cleared customs, his face serene and pale against his dark clothing. I kept to myself as we walked through the airport towards the entrance of the terminal and I was rather exhausted after having kept myself up for an unreasonable amount of time, to watch over Jasper in his stupefied state.

Jasper and I walked side by side and I found that after a while I was following him. We ended up in an exclusive car park, where he handed the valet something and he turned to me. 'I got you another present,' he said, 'it's just about to come around the corner.' I looked to where he pointed and an exquisite car came upon us. Another valet got out of the car and held the door open.

'Do you want to drive?' I asked him worriedly.

'I can do, but I think you'd better have the first drive...'

The valet came over to us. 'Mr. Hale, here is your receipt. We hope you have a lovely day.'

'I can't drive this Jasper,' I said, 'I haven't passed my test or anything.'

He reached into his back pocket and handed me a pink plastic card. There was the same photo as the one on my passport with my name and an address I didn't recognise. 'No one needs to know that except you and me,' he said seductively in my ear, 'just imagine I'm your instructor, and your having a lesson with me. I'll fill you with confidence.'

I walked dumbfounded to the door. 'It's all backwards,' I grumbled as I slid into the leather seat.

'You cannot call a Rolls Royce backwards, Draco.' He argued. 'Especially not a brand new Coupe.'

'You shouldn't have done this.' I said, closing the door and settling in for the drive. 'I don't even know where I'm going.' I said as I slid into first gear. I was suddenly awash with collective calm and I sped off out of the car park with a pompous grace.

'You're right,' he agreed, 'I shouldn't have but I did. And you like it.'

'I do. I love it.'

He directed me the whole way into central London, where we arrived outside a tall building with glass paneled walls. 'This is Rosalie and Emmett's flat.' He said as I pulled into the underground car park. I settled the Rolls into a space and hopped out with a feeling of grand elation.

The apartment was all bare brick and placid colors. I walked around, feeling out of touch with reality, and turned to Jasper. 'It's nice.' I said.

Jasper flitted over to the fridge and pulled it open. 'Are you hungry? We had a friend come over and stock the fridge up.'

'A friend?' I questioned as he pulled a plastic bottle from the cool box and twisted the lid open, tipping the contents into his mouth and gulping down ferociously. 'Ah... a friend.' I said, understanding as he wiped a speck of blood from the corner of his mouth. 'I'm not hungry at all,' I said with a final edge to my tone, 'I think I'm gonna shower and go to bed.'

X

I laid awake that night from time zone changes and a sense of dread wash over me. Worries over contacting Hermione Granger washed over me incessantly and I tossed and turned to try and drive them away.

Giving in to my nervosa, I got up out of bed at the first crack of light over England. I got dressed in clothes to suit the weather, which if the pounding of rain against the windows throughout the night was anything to go by, was going to be dismal. British weather wasn't like the weather in Forks. It was colder, wetter and wicked in nature, so with a warm jumper I braced the cold outside the bedroom.

Jasper sat unmoving in a chair by the television which was on such a low volume I couldn't hear it. I watched the screen flickering for a moment before moving towards him, my socked feet slipping a little on the polished wooded floor. 'Hey.' I said softly.

Jasper turned to me, his golden eyes darkened in the half-light. He smiled. 'Hello, Draco, how are you?'

'I'm okay,' I said, moving to sit on the couch, 'how are you?'

'I'm good.' He moved to sit beside me, close and intimate in nature. I bristled with my conflicting desires. 'Would you like some breakfast?' He asked me.

'I'm fine. I have to go to Diagon Alley and buy an owl first thing so I'll pick something up there.' I said in avoidance, for I really could not eat anything with the nerves dominating my body.

'Are you sure you're okay?' He asked, looking at me pointedly. He rested a hand over my heart. 'You're a bundle of anxiety.' He caught my chin and turned my head so I was looking into his eyes. 'You're sweating and it smells so good!' Jasper inched closer and turned so he was pressed close to my side. His hard body made me loose myself for a moment and I physically warmed into his touch.

'Jasper,' I warned, coming back into myself as he started roaming his hand down my neck and my chest, 'this is not reality.'

'I'm attracted to you. I desire you.' He said as his hand moved to run down my arm sensually.

'You're attracted to my blood.' I said firmly. '_I am a human and you are not attracted to me!_'

'You're not fully human,' he said reasonably, 'and I am attracted to you.' His hand moved to my neck again where it started to caress the skin in wispy little motions. I moaned into the touch.

'You are deluded and fictitious in your desires, Jasper.' I said, pushing his hand away, 'This is not going to happen.'

He stared hard at me for a moment and I returned it. 'You degrade my longing for you with such ease; I don't understand it.' He said, hurt slipping past my defenses from his power.

'You do understand it.' I said. 'You understand how impossible it is for this to happen, don't you?'

I wondered if he knew of some way around the fact that one of us was innately human because his persistence was of an Olympic standard. He pulled me on top of him in a flutter of movement, and I laid over his hard body panting. 'I have no idea what you mean,' he purred, his hands moving down my back to lay heavily on my arse. I braced myself up with my hands, on either side of his head but the position that put me in caused him to pull me up a fraction with my arse so we rubbed together.

We both moaned at the friction and I was fast becoming hard in my jeans and in my second of bliss, he slipped past my emotional defenses and filled me to the brim with his intoxicating lust. I cascaded over mountains and oceans of want and the effect had me clawing at his shirt.

I knew it was wrong, somewhere inside of me but he had me gripped and I couldn't resist the need to touch him and be touched by him.

I tore open the shirt to reveal hard, scarred skin. I moaned as I leaned down to kiss him all over. 'My turn,' he growled, flipping me over so he was over me with the look of pure domination I knew should be the warning sign that he was going to kill me.

He stripped me down, naked as the day I was born and with agitation I gripped at the waistband of his trousers and made to work them off.

Watching me for any signs of hesitation, he began to handle my cock with delicious tender. Up and down he stroked, twisting as he reached the head and for the life of me I dare not look down at his own member, afraid what the sight would have me doing or saying.

He took my hand and placed it over his stone solid cock and I administered the same heady movement to him as he did to me.

Nothing I had ever experienced had felt this good. No quiet fumblings in my dorm at Hogwarts or fisting my cock in the shower. I moaned, embarrassed as he watched me, but I kept my eyes on his.

He lifted me up after a while and sat me in his lap, his feet on the floor and his back against the couch. 'I need to be in you.' He said to me earnestly. 'If I don't, I think I'll fade away...'

His strong influence was still sweet and hyper, its core wrapping around my heart and mind so I was powerless to escape it. He reached around me and touched me, slipping inside so we became one. It felt so good, I wasn't aware that he had pushed inside me with his cock until he held my hips and rocked me.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and moved with him, resting my forehead against his whilst he whispered words of lust to me. His hand covered my cock again and he said to me: 'You need to cum, Draco.' And he made me feel orgasmic to the point of not being able to see anything and I came as he tensed impossibly beneath me.

He lifted his hand to his mouth and licked it clean in the most erotic way, his eyes never leaving mine. He leaned towards my chest and kissed my skin lovingly; I knew it was lovingly because our emotions were so keyed into each other in that moment.

An unnamed emotion crashed into me as he kissed my skin, nipping and licking me every so often and I wriggled with little effect to get off of him. 'You're hurting me, Jasper.' I said, frightened and wanting at the same time.

I wasn't sure what I was hungry for though...

'You taste so good,' he moaned into my flesh. 'I want more of you.' He looked up to me and his eyes were darker than I had ever seen them... blackened by thirst.

'You need to let me go now, Jasper,' I said calmly, by defenses back in place and working at high capacity. His grip on me relaxed and I stood before him, naked and sex stained. I bent low and searched for my wand.

And he launched himself off the sofa at me. In a reflexive motion, I rolled out of his way and he crashed into the television, causing it to break into chunks; the glass shattered as he growled. 'You are too elusive,' he said, 'and I'm finding it harder to resist.'

I pointed my wand at the fridge, 'Accio blood.' I commanded and the fridge door flew open, a bottle coming towards me at such high speed it hurt when I caught it. I thrust it in view of the naked Jasper swatted it out of his way and pounced again. I couldn't help it, even though a sickness was over taking me, I stupefied him with an incredible force and he landed in the remains of the television.

I stunned him again for good luck, pulled on my clothes and ran out of the door into the London morning.

X

I didn't have the patience to wait for Hermione to reply to the owl I had sent her, but I drew it up out of my core and made myself wait. I sat at a table, in the cold outside, of a tearoom in Diagon Alley. Thoughts of whether Jasper would be okay scuttled through my mind, over and over again, as I considered how his genetic make up would take to being stupefied for that long.

A grey owl with beady eyes swooped in towards me and landed on the table. It hurt to reach over to it and untie the scroll attached to its leg -I was sure Jasper had bruised my skin and broken a rib- and I had a swelling sickness invading my body and a palpitating heart.

The reply from Hermione was short.

_Floo address: 65 Wandsworth Gardens_

I cheered up brightly as I made my way into the teashop. 'Can I use your floo, M'am?' I queried the fat witch behind the counter, using my most charming of smiles.

'Course you can, Deary.' She said, pointing to the fireplace at the far end of the shop.

'Thank you,' I said, walking towards the fire, 'have a good day.'

I appeared in the drawing room of a bohemian family home. It smelled so British. A voice called out from somewhere in the house and I made my way towards it, through the hall and into the living room, where the connecting kitchen was closed off by double French doors. Behind I could see Hermione around the island in her kitchen, talking to someone out of view. She walked to me, smiling with fragility, and opened the door. 'Come in, Draco.'

I was met with the disapproving glare of Ron Weasley and the sheepish smile of Harry Potter, who nodded his head at me. I returned the gesture and looked at Hermione.

'Well, you wrote to me. So what is it you need help with?' She and Ron had their arms folded defensively.

'This is going to sound insane,' I started.

'What doesn't, when it comes to the Malfoy's?' Ron interrupted rudely. I glowered at him with malice.

Hermione looked frazzled. 'You can understand our wariness?' She asked.

'Completely,' I said, wincing slightly as I spoke.

'You look dreadful, Malfoy.' Harry said. 'Are you alright?'

'Physically? Mentally? No.' I said. 'Look, I could ghost around the issue, as I had hoped to before I came back to Britain, but the truth is I don't have time right now.'

I gasped as nausea took over me and held myself up on the counter. 'Go on, Malfoy.' Ron demanded.

'I need to learn about vampires,' I said, gasping for air little by little and becoming fainter with each turn of the cogs in my head, 'everything you know, Hermione, I need to know.'

'Draco, you do not look well at all,' she replied, 'I think you need to sit down. Come...' She moved to take me towards the couch in the living room. She held me upright as we moved and I could barely hear myself shouting in pain.

'I think he's been hurt,' Harry was saying, as he came up to me where I slumped on the sofa.

'I think my rib is broken,' I said, pulling up my jumper to try and gain a closer look. All three gasped when they were exposed to the skin on my front.

'Oh, my...' Hermione gasped, her wand in hand. 'You're bleeding. Did you burn yourself?'

'Those don't look right.' Harry said, pointing to a couple of livid red marks on my skin in the same places that Jasper had lustfully nipped me. I felt disgust towards myself as I thought what I had let myself do and what I let be done to me.

'Draco,' Hermione said, coming to sit next to me on the sofa. She tenderly touched my knee. 'We are going to have to take you to St. Mungos, okay?'

My eyes widened in fear. 'He's worried that they are going to inform the Ministry.' Harry said, coming closer still. 'Don't worry, Malfoy, nothing bad is going to happen. I promise.'

I started to hyperventilate with strangled breaths. Before loosing consciousness, I was intensely aware of Harry holding me protectively as he took me to the hospital.

X

Hermione stood by the bed as the Healers worked over me. 'It's going to be fine,' she soothed, 'the Healers have the venom under control.'

I thrashed about, turning this way and that, under the influence of the low dose of venom as it pulsed through my veins. 'Alice... Cullen...' I said to Hermione as my body froze in between fits. 'You need to call Alice Cullen... or my mother...'

Hermione looked brittle as my raspy, desperate voice grated demands.

'You need to do it now... please...' I implored her with every fiber of my being... 'You need to tell them that Jasper is unsafe... you need to go with them when they get here...'

'Miss Granger,' one of the Healers said, 'I am afraid that Mr. Malfoy here will need solitary confinement for a while... it would be best to go.'

She looked down at me, sorry. 'Please...' I begged again.

A blur of bleached screaming and frantic colour pulsed over me and aligned itself comparatively with dreadful darkness. I wasn't aware of anything outside the central nervous system of my magic as it battled against the invading predator of senseless thirst. Occasionally, the thirst would burn away and explosions of magic erupted from me in an erratic escape mission.

I was able to hear after days and days of hard work of internal battle; the dripping of liquid from an IV into my arm; the scratch of my body against the bed I lay in. After millions of drips later and mindless moving a bright light crossed my mind.

It felt unnatural and alien -as alien as the concept of IV's in St. Mungos- but it persisted for a thousand more drips.

And then it all went dark.

Following that came definition; I could see the room I was locked into. Crisp green walls and the motionless curtains.

I could hear my thoughts as clear as day after another day and my muscles felt in a state of atrophy; I had to get moving. A healer came into the room a couple of hours into the next day and looked me over; 'You are doing well, Mr. Malfoy. You should be up and running in a day or two.'

'I can go then?' I asked.

'Yes. When you're a little bit better, you can go.' I watched him leave in a clear whirl of grey beard and fat arse. I hated him instinctively.

Over the next couple of hours, however, my seemingly innate distaste for any human who walked into the room receded into nothing more than a memory. The Healers came into my room at sunrise the next day and all had happy, successful grins on their faces.

'Good morning, Mr. Malfoy. I am Healer Smethwyck, the head of the Creature Induced Injuries department. You probably don't remember me?' He wasn't the man with the grey beard, who I did remember having come in to check on me here and there. I shook my head, no.

'You have been held in the Dai Llewellyn ward, Mr. Malfoy.' The Healer crowed and I kept my gaze away from his handsome face. 'You had some nasty injuries, from vampires. Do you remember what happened?'

I glared up at him and said nothing. 'You know, we can't release you if you don't appear to be polite and in gratitude for our services.'

I smiled happily at him. 'Thank you very much for saving my life, Healer, but I have no clue where and why I got my bites.' I mentally crucioed every single happy faced healer in the room.

'Very well, Mr. Malfoy.' Healer Smethwyck nodded his head. 'Your vitals are stable and you seem to pose no threat to society. There is one other matter that we need to go over with you.'

'Yes, Sir?' I asked, imagining him writhing in pain and taking back every witty phrase he had ever said, and every bloody ostentatious manner he had ever procured.

'It seems that whatever vampire you had altercations with also had _relations_ with you.' I didn't respond, clenching my teeth, 'Aside from the vampire burns, a broken rib and severe bruising of the flesh, you also conceived.'

I stopped mentally crucioing the Healer. 'Conceived.' I said.

'Indeed. However, for your own safety during the purging we had to abort the child.'

'Oh. That's good.' I said in a state of shock. Was it a good thing? It certainly wasn't natural...

'It's standard procedure for both sexes to have abortions when purging, so it's nothing to feel discriminated about.'

_I don't feel discriminated,_ I thought. _I feel fucking weird._

'Alas, you may feel sore for a few days. Any problems, do not hesitate to return and see a general healer. You are free to go, Mr. Malfoy; there is a few people here to see you home.'

They left after one of the medi-wizards did a switching spell on me, so my clothes were returned to my body instead of the hospital pyjamas. I smelt foul.

As I rose from the bed, the doors opened again and Hermione and Harry came in. 'Hey.' They both said in sorrow.

'Cheer up guys, the sadness is palpable.' I stopped and started a few times, stuttering over my words. 'Stop worrying, Hermione. I'm fine, just... changed a little.'

'Changed?' Harry asked, his hand moving towards his wand that I guessed was in his back pocket.

'I can feel your emotions.' _Just like Jasper,_ I added in my head. I experimented by thinking about Hermione feeling happy. A smile shot onto her face very fast.

'Did you just make her do that?' Harry asked a little warily. I nodded. 'Cool.' He said.

'I think you need to come home with us, Draco.' Hermione said with a hitch of giggles in her voice. 'There's a couple of people there that would like to make sure you are okay.'

X

It was only glancing at the paper on Hermione's entrance hall table, that I realised I had been knocked out for a month. _So much for bedside manner and explaining how long I had been holed up,_ I thought as I pictured Healer Smethwyck croacking on his own ego. I shunned the feelings of despair as I was led into the drawing room.

Carlisle and Alice stood beside my mother looking hapless with worry and delayed elation. My mother careened towards me as I walked into the room.

'Oh, Sweetie!' She yelled, wrapping her arms around my neck.

'I'm fine, Mum.' I said, pushing her off me. 'Hey, Carlsile, Alice.' I nodded my head towards them and turned to Hermione and Harry.

'I haven't had a chance yet to say so, but _thank you_.' I walked towards them both and grabbed them in turn into hugs. I was surprised that they both responded with vigor.

'Draco,' Carlisle said in his deep, silky voice. 'We need to talk to you...'

I turned towards him and frowned. 'I know, you probably want to know all about what happened-'

Carlisle cut me off. 'We know, Son.' He said, his palm raised to stop me from speaking. 'That is not what we need to talk about.' He paused for a few moments. 'I think we should all sit down.'

I obeyed with keen interest coursing through my system.

'Miss Granger here,' Carlisle indicated towards Hermione, who sat next to Harry on the sofa opposite me, 'is a phenomenal woman.' Hermione was blushing under the spotlight and I blocked out the bashful nobility with a cork on my new ability. Carlisle felt smoothly calm, except underneath it all was a fiery impatience. I keyed into it as he carried on. 'She took heed of your desperation to get hold of us, and did so without delay.

'Understandably, the entire Cullen clan turned out for damage control. Harry and Hermione here met us all at the airport and we took them to Rosalie and Emmett's flat. Poor Harry and Hermione took half an hour to revive Jasper.'

'He nearly killed me, Malfoy.' Harry said with amusement, 'That's some boyfriend you have there.'

I blushed with the words. 'He is not my boyfriend.' I said.

'Jasper has been taken away for some time now, Draco.' Carlisle said to me, his eyes sorrowful and deep. I sent a wave of calm and joy over the room.

'Jasper is finding it a little difficult to keep himself in control, right now.' Alice explained dolefully. 'We thought it best that he didn't attempt to bring the limelight onto you at the moment.'

'You mean kill humans and be linked to me.' I said flatly. 'You know,' I started, angry and fierce, turning to Alice fully and spitting my words at her, 'he could of killed me! You are a seer! You should have been able to see this would happen!'

Alice halted in her defenses with open lips and irritated glare. 'My visions change as and when people change their minds; before you left, he was not going to try anything with you. He's an empath, Draco… he was quite aware of your reluctance.'

'You have no idea of my reluctance.' I muttered.

'I live with Edward, remember?' She said lightly and I crushed her humor under a heavy bout of surreal rage.

'Yes and now, I am stained with his gift.'

'The healers said that might happen,' Hermione explained to me, 'Healer Smethwyck said it was common magical transfer.'

'Between vampires and humans, nothing is common.' I spat. Everybody in the room started laughing and with anger I stood, a burst of my magic whipping the lighter objects in the room off their perches. Crashes and breaking littered the air in the room. 'He tried to kill me!' I screamed above the shattering. Strong arms wrapped around me, but in the ocean of fear, ignorance and anger, I wasn't privy to the visuals of the drawing room.

'Stop this, Draco.' A warm voice said in my ear. My back was pressed into the chest of my captor, my arms pinned to my sides. I breathed heavily.

I knew in that moment how close I had come to death and more so how it didn't worry me like it should have. I was screaming and using the words _he tried to kill me_, just to cause reaction.

'He wouldn't have tried to kill you,' someone was saying to me and the sound was fuzzy, 'he can't kill a creature he loves.

That topic struck a nerve. Love? There was no love between us; a sexual fascination, maybe. Loving touches in post coital bliss. Love was a different scenario, because love meant there was something there.

I didn't need anyone there.

I was quite content with my forest and my camera. Solitary. At peace.

'It was just sex,' I squeezed through the mess of emotions and wondering instability. 'We do not love each other.'

'He loves you Draco...' Carlisle said with hard force.

'So what?!' I yelled. 'Am I supposed to be bonded to a mate for all eternity now? No bloody choice, no bloody variation?'

I felt a collective shock fill the room. I thought I could taste its electric tingle on my tongue. 'Oh, honey...' My mother said as I turned in her arms to face her; her eyes were understandably teary.

I started to falter under the pressure of it all. My heartbeat increased and I shook with the force of panic in my body. 'He forced himself on me...' I said. 'He got past my barriers and filled me with want and lust. It wasn't my bloody choice!'

For a second everyone was quiet. I felt degraded. 'You know well enough you could have stopped him if you tried, Malfoy.' Hermione said.

'Oh shut up, Mudblood.' I snarled. My mother whacked the back of my head; Hermione smirked.

'Your magic would have to have been severely lowered for you to not have been able to use threatened reserve on him.' Hermione said.

'Used what?' My mother asked for me whilst I rubbed the back of my head.

'It's a magical response to threatening situations,' Harry said, 'we see it all the time in rape cases.'

'We?' Alice queried.

'The Aurors.'

'Aurors?' Alice asked.

'Dark Wizard catchers.' They looked at each other for a second too long, and poking into their emotions I found an attraction.

'Oh, not you two!' I cried. The persons in the room looked at me. 'They like each other,' I said, pointing to Alice and Harry.

Carlisle smiled happily. I threw a burst of disgust his way and he glowered at me. 'No one said that attraction and copulation lead to bonding, in the sense of life mates, Draco.' Hermione said strictly.

'So what _does_ it mean?'

'What you did was a romantic thing,' Hermione explained, flushing slightly, 'you two will probably want to do it more.'

I snarled at her and shut my eyes for a couple of seconds, regretting ever letting Jasper come to Britain with me. And then I opened them and found Alice's eyes and within seconds she was yelling at the effect of the stinging hex I sent her way. 'What was that for?!' She yelled.

'Because you sent him with me. _And you should have known better_!'

I knew I was going for reaction again; something, anything, to relieve me from the itch. I wonder now what the itch came from and I guess it was a responsive click to the end of the war, where I played a big part running back and forth and doing things; dangerous, difficult and destructive things.

But then again, the itch had always been there. An organic response to my own dumbfounded insecurity.

I remembered how thin I got during my seventh year at Hogwarts and missed the elating feel of hunger.

I missed how nasty the anorexia made me.

I mourned for the witty retorts that would make me laugh in private. I missed feeling smart, intelligent.

I did not like feeling week. Here I was, in the face of my once upon a time enemies, suffering for being a brittle human being.

'If it was up to Jasper,' Carlisle was saying, 'he would have had you holed up in that apartment for the next couple of years.'

'And you sound so reassured when you say that, Doctor. What is your diagnosis of that fact?'

Carlisle made a little gesture of embarrassment. 'Jasper has waited a long time to find someone to do that with.'

I pouted my lips at him and bit the inside. 'To do what?' I asked, bitter and horrified. 'You know what,' I started with an evil flourish to my gestures, 'I don't give a fuck. You lot are a fucking bunch of oversensitive romantics. Let me tell you something, it was just a fuck. There's no connection, no holding hands or kissing involved, okay?'

'A vampire doesn't generally feel like that after sex, Draco.' Carlisle said and he made to carry on, but I silenced him by shouting out my next sentence:

'THEN KEEP HIM THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!'

'What's going to happen now?' My mother asked, unaffected by my outburst. I guess that's what happens to a woman who lives with a tyrannical husband for the better part of her life.

'Alice is going to stay here with Draco,' Carlisle explained, 'in Britain. I'm going to go back to Forks and hold the fort there; the lord knows that Jasper will probably check there first if he can't find Draco in the UK.'

Hermione looked to me; 'I don't know a lot on vampires, Draco,' I imagined she was being modest, 'but I'm willing to help you figure out whatever it is you came here to do.'

'She spends her time focused on house elf liberation and Ron.' Harry said to Alice. They both laughed and I wondered how long they had been around each other for Alice to have already met the adopted family. 'And she _does_ know a lot about magical creatures.'

I stood. 'I need a fucking cigarette.' I walked out the room to the front door, suddenly flanked by Harry and Alice. 'I don't need _bodyguards_.'

'Uh,' Harry started, 'actually, you do. The Ministry has appointed me as your chaperone, until I see fit that you are not a danger to society.'

'Danger to society?' I breathed.

'Yes; they want me to make sure that you are indeed here for research purposes and not to start reviving Voldemort's beliefs.'

'That is absurd.' I said, opening the door to be met with a cloudy sky and rain. 'Do they really think people would hold stock in the wimpy kid that didn't have the heart to kill Dumbledore?'

Harry laughed; 'The Death Eaters all followed a half blood who believed in full blooded values.'

'Touché.' I said. 'Where's the nearest shop, then?'

'Follow me.' Harry said.

The walk along the common was pretty, in a blustery kind of way, but the need to fill myself with smoke consumed me. I paid attention to the approaching shop and almost ran in when I got there. I walked out to Harry and Alice talking animatedly. I ignored the mutual attraction blossoming between them and felt heady with passing people leaving their own feelings on me.

I lit a cigarette and it felt good.

On the walk home, once the first cigarette was finished, I lit another one and didn't bother with formality when I entered Number 65, just went about smoking all over the drawing room. I transfigured a tacky glass ornament into an ashtray and chugged down five more smokes before I was content.

Carlisle and my mother rose in front of me. 'We have to go dear,' my mother said as she leant down to hug me, 'call me, okay?'

I nodded with a surreal feeling of my own design touching the corners of my being. 'Bye Mum, bye Carlisle.' In some way, I was trying to make up for being so rude, but I doubt now whether he really cared.

'Be safe Son,' he said to me as he guided my mother to the front door.

'What I don't understand,' I said to Hermione, Harry and Alice once my mother and Carlisle were out of earshot, 'is why I have to be under guard.'

'Nobody saw this coming,' Alice said. 'We all thought Jasper could hold it together whilst you and he were in London.'

'You do realise he is the one in your family with near uncontrollable craving for human blood?'

Alice felt embarrassed. 'He's been different when you have been around, Draco. He hasn't been talking about the fight to stay controlled.'

I embraced the interest coming from Harry and Hermione as if it were my own.

Alice continued; 'I know he wouldn't of hurt you,' she said, 'it would have been impossible for him to do so.'

'It was frightening.' I said. 'His eyes were black with thirst.'

Alice blushed with emotion. 'That wasn't thirst for blood, Draco.'

'You mean to say, Jasper was thirsting for a shag?' I asked. 'Oh, don't answer that,' I said, intensely aware of Harry and Hermione. 'He really hurt me, you know.' I gestured to my rib.

'Which is why I'm staying in London with you, until we know he has settled down.'

'I hate to be the carrier of bad news,' Hermione said, 'but I don't think he will settle down until he's back with Draco. It stands to reason that the desire won't contain itself until the object of one's desire is within reach.'

'But you heard what Carlisle said!' I growled through my teeth, 'If he and I fuck, then I'm going to get pregnant and what's to say I'll survive that?'

The air around me felt uncomfortable. 'That's why we need to start researching immediately, Draco.' Hermione said to me. I lit another cigarette and inhaled it proudly. 'It shouldn't surprise you to hear me say that the only information we have about vampires, is how to avoid them and offer successful counter attacks.'

'So we need to start digging deeper.' I added. 'I think we should go to Malfoy Manor.'

Harry and Hermione looked at me; a sudden flicker of detest spiked me. 'It has a bloody old library.' I argued, stubbing out my cigarette prematurely in my indignation.

'You ready to try flooing, Alice?' Harry asked, defeated. I looked at him with burning curiosity in my eyes. 'She won't try magic without you around. None of them will.'

'It's a mark of respect.' Alice said. 'You are our guide and we have hired your services.'

I couldn't help saying to Harry: 'Looks like you have reason to watch over me; I have the vampires on my side.'

X

Alice was feeling proud of herself when she walked out of the floo with Harry, into the welcoming hall of Malfoy Manor. 'Wow...' She crowed, her voice reverberating around the white marbled walls and floors.

I smiled myself in appreciation of the ancestral gaff; it was an unrivaled Manor home. 'Come, let us start in the library.' I led them from the East wing to the West where the ground floor hosted the library. On the way I called a house elf -still kept in service at the request of my father to keep the house in tip top shape for his release- and felt a bristle of resentment tickle from Hermione. 'Stella, could you please begin to prepare dinner for a party of three?' The little elf was running to keep up with my fast stride.

'Oh, yes, Master Draco!' She cried, 'Stella is so happy to back in service of her master!'

'And please bring some wine from the cellar. That will be all. Thank you.' I said. Hermione's discomfort doubled whilst Alice was fascinated. Harry seemed neutral on all fronts and it pleased me.

'That was so mean,' Hermione said once the elf vanished, 'making her run to keep up with you.'

I nearly told her to shut up, but decided on a better retaliation by singing under my breath _Weasley is our king._ She had a sharp uptake of fury at me.

I opened the doors to the library with a twist in the air of my wand. The sound of bolts cracking open broke the silence and sounded against the marble. 'You grew up here?' Alice asked me as we walked in to the library. I smiled when I felt Hermione's awe double and then triple as she took in all the tomes.

'Yes.' I answered, gazing up to the gallery.

'This place is amazing,' she said.

'There's acres of forest behind the Manor too.' She lifted her eyebrows at me. 'All privately owned. But if you do go hunting, you might want to watch out for the nymphs.'

Harry licked my senses with jealousy. 'Maybe you should go with her?' I offered. 'Alice won't hurt you, _because she loves you!_' I said in a sing song. Harry flushed.

Alice's phone started to ring with high pitch against the onset of silence in the booked room. 'It's Edward,' she said, looking at the screen before pressing the answer button. She talked so low and fast I couldn't understand her; in fact I was sure she was speaking a different language altogether. Her emotions flittered from worried to concerned to submission so fast it was hard to keep up.

She turned to me. 'Edward says that Jasper is near enough loosing it. He wants you to talk to him.'

Instinct took over and I grabbed the phone out of her hand with inhuman speed. I pressed the phone to my ear and spoke fast. 'Hello?'

_'Hello, Draco. It's Edward.'_

'Edward. How are you and all that. Where's Jasper?' I saw Alice look knowingly at Harry and Hermione.

_'Hang on,'_ there was a pause on the phone and some shuffling movement. I heard Edward say to someone: _'It's okay, you can let him go.'_

There was a ruffle of sound. _'Draco?'_ Jasper asked and I held myself from breaking down at hearing his voice. A mile of anxiety I didn't know I had been traveling dissolved from before me and I fought back shame and indignity from swallowing me whole. _'Draco, are you alright?'_ He asked me.

'I'm fine, just scarred.' I said morbidly. 'Lost our baby and –'

_'-where are you? I'm coming to find you, Draco! I'm so sorry.'_ He said over me.

'-they kept me in hospital. It was really, really weird. I was really sick.'

_'Seriously, Draco. Where are you?'_

I became irritated at his worry but below that was a daring thirst for his body to come against mine. I wasn't sure which way to bat as the thirst became a heavy weight inside of me.

If I didn't know better, I would have said he was able to read and influence my emotions over the phone. I did know better, however, because when I tried to send a bolt of calm to him, he didn't say anything.

_It was just sex_, I reminded my self over and over and with every repetition my conviction stumbled and dissolved.

I looked at Alice. 'I need to see him.' I said desperately; I was tuned into her braced feeling, ready to pounce on me if I revealed too much information. She shook her head and Jasper was begging in my ear through the phone. 'Please.' I begged her.

'It is not safe.' She said with finality. 'It is not safe for Harry and Hermione-'

'Then they will have to get all of their wanded friends here and watch over us!' I shouted, disgusted with my self that passion was coming between me and my logic.

_'Draco?!'_ Jasper was demanding now. _'I need to see you otherwise I will fade into nothing.'_

'Technically, it's not strictly safe with you here.' Harry said to Alice. I could have _kissed_ him with gratitude.

_'Who's that?'_ Jasper growled through the phone.

'That's Harry Potter and he knows how to vanquish dark beings.' I snapped down the phone, looking towards Alice, imploring her to make a decision. Either way, I knew the decision she made would send someone catatonic. The idea of drama enthused me.

'If you end up in hospital again, it's going to be my fault. No.' She said. I snarled at her.

'He said he would fade if he didn't see me.' I said.

'Vampires do not fade.' She said. 'No means no.'

_'Tell her that I'm going to tear her to pieces and burn her when I see her, will you?'_ Jasper said.

'Tell him he'll have to catch me first.' She replied having heard clearly what he had said. She snatched the phone out of my hand and closed it and I had my wand trained on her in a flash.

'What the hell did you do that for?' I asked.

'I decided time was up and so did Edward, because he said he was going to do the same thing to Jasper to Rosalie.'

Harry felt impressed and my want to thank him vanished into thin air. Impossibly, however, my need for dangerous sex had taken flight away from me. I blinked away the shock of feeling calm and turned to my guests. 'Well, let's get on.' I walked into the depths of the library.

'Well that was weird,' Harry said. 'Are you _taking notes_, Hermione?' I looked back over my shoulder, Hermione's state of feeling coming back at me with conviction.

'Of course I'm taking notes,' she said with the pen in her hand and a journalist pad in the other, 'We're conducting research.'

'You might want to note that this behavior will probably get worse,' Alice offered, 'I've been talking to Edward every day, and he says that the only thing Jasper can think about is Draco. He said he was sure Jasper thinks that if he's hysterical for long enough, that he'll go crazy.'

I was infected with the drama.

_Fuck the forests_, I thought to myself.

X

**_A good review makes a writers hands work faster, harder and their minds work better._**


	6. Chapter 6

**We can fight our desires**

X

With about a hundred books still to go, the month we had spent studying was long and tiring. Alice was increasingly frustrated about something untold and I was happy for it, albeit aware she should have graceful immortal patience.

Hermione spent her days travelling between Wiltshire and London where she would spend time with an angry Ron; he didn't quite understand the importance of researching vampires and every morning that Hermione would floo into the Manor, she would say that Ron was slowly coming round to the idea, but until the morning where he showed up with her I was highly disbelieving.

Ron stood beside the table looking uncomfortable, shuffling from foot to foot with nerves that were directed to a serene Alice. Harry was neutral again but it was Hermione's embarrassed irritation that fed my fire. 'Sit down, crack open a book and look for anything you might find useful or fuck the hell off!' I spat at him.

'Ignore him,' Alice chimed, 'he hasn't left the Manor in over a month and it's very unbecoming of him.'

'I'm too keyed into all of your feelings.' I grumbled, throwing the book on _Travelling With Vampires and Beasts_ across the room, so it's ancient bindings broke apart and pages scattered over the room. 'It's suffering.'

Ron looked personally affronted at my outburst. 'Please, Weasley. You're making me nervous.'

'And he's getting tetchy about Jasper, more and more.' Alice said, which I had heard her say a thousand times already.

'No, it's because I can't take a piss without supreme Auror Potter here watching me.'

'You don't really watch him taking a _wee_, do you mate?' Ron asked, aghast.

'I have too. He can't go anywhere without me watching him, unless I have his wand and have sealed all possible exits for escape.' Harry ruffled his hair, quite aware of the hard deal he had landed with me. Under other circumstances, I may have felt this gesture appeasing to my maddening attitude, but it served me a dull annoyance.

Ron looked at me pityingly. I thrust a book his way and he took it with a humph. 'If you all continue talking about me like I'm a convict, I'm going to make you all watch me skinny dip.'

Ron laughed as if I was joking, which I most certainly wasn't. 'Don't antagonize the situation with your humour, Weasley; I'm serious.'

He looked at Hermione for confirmation and she nodded. I took a deep breath of booky scent before opening _Giants and Gentlemen, _a book from the tenth century. Its pages were thin and brittle under my fractious fingertips. 'Last week he forced Harry to watch him meditate.' Hermione said. 'For three hours.' She added with disdain.

After fifteen minutes of silent reading, and a dutiful sense of calm settling over the room, Ron asked: 'Why don't you go for a stroll about Diagon Alley with Harry for the day, if you're so pent up?'

I shocked him with a flash of despair; only he didn't understand it was because of his idiocy. 'We could, you know. You're not under house arrest.' Harry said.

I looked at him, 'We've talked about this,' I said, 'if Jasper catches a whiff of me-'

'And I've told you a thousand times that he wont.' Alice said to me.

'Fine!' I shouted, 'We'll bloody go out for the day.' And loathe as I was to admit it, the safest place I could be in a flock of wizards would be with the Gryffindor Trio.

X

I was a little dismayed that my presence in Diagon Alley didn't cause the uproar I had hoped it would. I made a mental note to try out the Ministry at the next available time. I started to strut through the little district of wizards, feeling rather fashionable in my acid green, tight, jeans and livid purple jumper. Hermione had insisted that Alice, who too was accompanying us, would need to dress with magical flare if she were to blend in. Having finally forced her -by switching spell- into red jeans of mine with a Weird Sisters emblazoned hooded jumper, she was astonishingly brazen with her sense of cool.

Hermione had magically blushed Alice's cheeks and changed her eye colour to green, like Harry's, and Alice had cried into the mirror: 'I look _human!_' We had all laughed but walking through Diagon Alley, Alice stayed quiet. Every time I felt her curiosity about something flare, I would explain it to her, low and quietly. 'That's Gringotts, the wizarding bank of the Britain.' I would say or 'That's Knockturn Alley, the dark district.' Her fascination dominated me however, when we arrived outside Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes.

'Quite a mouthful.' She said to me.

'It's my brothers shop.' Ron said, opening the door and leading us all inside to a demur looking George Weasley. He looked older, wiser and tainted by the world as I saw him for the first time in nearly a year. A mournful energy simmered below the surface of his apparent joy at seeing his brother and his friends.

It was an overwhelming feeling; coupled with memories of his screams as his ear came clean off from Snape's curse made me feel sick.

'I need to go for a smoke,' I said to Harry as I turned and left the shop. He flanked my side, close as we walked through the door.

The thought of Fred Weasley's body, laid out on the floor of the Great Hall, made my stomach churn.

We stood outside the shop, the wind catching in the narrow street. 'How you feeling?' Harry asked me as I lit my cigarette with the help of his wand.

I thought about it for a while. 'Better.' I said. 'It's nice to feel other peoples emotions and be somewhere different.' I lied, thinking how George lamented. Although, as people walked past me, imprinting their feelings on me, the multi-faceted expressions moved me through different energy fields.

Harry smiled at me, unaware of my conflicting feelings; on the one hand, I was quite aware of my burgeoning regrets and sadness from the war and on the other, with all the emotions coming from the wizards around me, the convinced superiority.

It felt good to understand how many people in my small, little world were sad and depressed. I didn't feel alone.

Harry smiled at me. 'Where do you want to go next?' He asked.

'Today?'

'Yeah,' he looked around, 'I wouldn't mind going to the sweet shop.'

Without wanting to look back in the shop, I took off across the street towards _Candy Bats_. I hadn't been there for years; so focused was I on Honeydukes. But the quality of Candy Bats sweets was infinitely better and the sweet smell cleansed me of some angst as I entered the shop.

I looked about a bit, the dark walls contrasting against the bright, acid coloured sweets on the shelves. In tribute to the name of the shop, liquorice bats flew around the patrons heads. Animated sugar mice crawled within their basket, squeaking with delight every time someone picked some up.

The fat witch behind the counter eyed me warily; I remembered the time she caught me stealing and how, when my father found out, he reduced my meals to a house elf portion. I grimaced as the witch kept watch on me, not wanting to remember how humiliated I had been all those years back.

'Oh my God, Draco!' Harry called from over the way. I smirked at the witch, who upon hearing my name seemed to confirm to herself that it was me, the Malfoy boy, who was invading her sugary sanctuary. I hoped she would send me from the shop in a theatrical rage that would have all the other shoppers up in arms.

'You'll never believe this,' Harry said as I reached him, standing in front of a stand labelled _Treats for Creatures_. I noticed whiskey lumps for house elves and picked a couple of boxes up, hoping to use them to soften Hermione up whenever I needed too. There was Dragon's Toffee, which looked like it was made of fleshy creatures and on the bottom shelf and the sight of them sickened me; I was sure I saw movement within the packets. And there, on the bottom shelf, all dusty from having not been touched in a while were Vampire Lollypops.

Harry had his hands full of his own wares; Acid Pops and Sugar Quills, an assortment of Chocolate Frogs and a box of forsaken Bertie Botts Beans.

I grabbed the whole lot of lollypops and took all my purchases to the counter., strutting to the witch who looked about ready to vomit with my approaching form. 'What do these do?' I asked setting the basket on the counter.

'They are for vampires.' She said stiffly.

'Yes, but what do they do for vampires?' I asked.

'They sooth the cravings of thirst.' She stated, her eyes moving up towards Harry who came and unloaded his sweets on the counter beside mine. She seemed to recognise him, for her features softened, and she all but ignored me as she took Harry's sweets and began to ring them up.

'Can I have an order form then,' I asked her, fierce and determined, 'in case I need more?' She had a little spike of fear, her focus returning to me as if I had materialised out of nowhere. Maybe she thought I was the vampire, with my pale skin and haunting eyes. 'Do they work?' I inquired sceptically now, realisation dawning that this could be a scam.

'Of course they do!' She said, affronted. 'They are made from dragon blood, which is next to human on a vampires list of prey.' She looked at me as if I should know; a boy raised by the dark arts, surely could recite everything about the darker side of the wizarding world... if only it was that easy.

'I'll have that order form, please.' I said spitefully, pushing my purchases towards her and handing double the amount of galleons for both mine and Harry's things. Her eyes widened, looking at Harry, who put an arm around my shoulder brotherly.

I couldn't bear to return to George Weasley's gloom; hovering outside in the cold, I watched as Alice flittered around the shop with Hermione, pretending to be a witch.

Harry had his arm around my shoulder still, and gave it a squeeze. 'You feeling alright, after all of that?' He asked, referring to Candy Bats. I nodded, feeling fine, albeit disappointed with the lack of hysteria. Harry released me from his hold.

The girls and Ron, who was flushed and stuttering over something inane, came out of the shop. Alice held some trinkets up for me to see, although I wasn't in the least bit interested. The group's energy began infecting me again and I became miserable, the impending return to Malfoy Manor sitting heavily on my mind.

'I bought you something,' I said to Hermione, shoving the bag of house elf goodies into her hands. 'And something for you too,' I said, pulling a lollypop out of the bag and giving it to Alice.

'I don't eat human food...' she said.

'Take the wrapper off,' Harry implored, happy and eager.

Alice removed the wrapper with her teeth, a crackling of plastic sounding as the covering fell to the floor. She smelt the lolly first, then put the small, dark red bulb in her mouth and sucked. 'Oh, this tastes good!' She moaned around her sweetie.

Harry smiled like it was his idea.

X

Considerably cheered, the Manor didn't seem so forbidding in nature when we arrived back home. Ron took straight away to the kitchen, where he stayed for half an hour, whilst I started on Alice with ferocity; 'Can you get him here for his birthday?' I asked her, antagonising the situation to the best of my abilities.

'I don't think so, Draco. It's way to dangerous, right now.' She said, a stony regret and despair laden on her heart.

'Please...?' I asked her again as I tailed her to the library. In the setting sun, the library glowed as it's windows were taken up by orange sun. 'I'll let you cut this mess of hair and _everything_!' I suggested, pulling on the locks to emphasise my point as she looked round at me.

I wondered whether I was really antagonising the situation or covering my want for Jasper with my own despair and regret.

Hermione shouted for me from the table at the centre of the library. 'Draco! Come quickly!' She yelled and I walked into the space where she sat, her energy covering me cripplingly as it connected with my excitement.

'What is it?' Alice and I asked at the same time, her human appearance racking with my sense of reality.

'I've found a book on potions that were used by vampires!' She exclaimed, pointing to a tome in front of her. 'It was hand written in 1030!'

'You're kidding me,' I said, 'We've been home for five minutes and you happen across this book just like-'

'No, no... It was that lollypop you gave Alice that gave me the idea!' She said, handing me the book and forcing me to sit down.

'What idea was that?' I asked dryly.

'All this time we have been using search spells, looking for _potions_...'

'Food?' Alice asked Hermione cryptically. I felt a heat come from both of them; excitement, resolution.

Hermione became demonic in the recital of her thought process; 'Yes, food. That lollypop had me thinking about how vampires must approach the subject of anything to be eaten or drunk... you said so yourself, Alice - _"I don't eat human food."_ - because it's natural for you to reject something you don't instinctively crave. But you can consume food. Those lollypops contain other things than blood, don't they? But you didn't find anything wrong with them. You consumed it like you would the blood of an animal, as if it was natural food.' Hermione came over and turned the book in my hands to the front cover. 'Look at the title,' she demanded of me and I did.

'_The Vampiric Cookbook_.' I said aloud.

'It was silly of me to not think of this before,' she said with her hand on her chin, 'because house elves talk about duty as if it were pleasure! It's the ideas themselves that create the characteristics; the person who wrote this must have been affiliated with vampires.'

'Or one themselves.' I gave.

'Yes. Or one themselves. It's a bit of humour too, don't you think? _The Vampiric Cookbook_.'

Alice giggled; 'It's too make them feel more human.'

Hermione looked thoughtful, 'I can't believe I didn't think of this before... Such a play on ideas.'

'It's a play on _ideals_.' Alice corrected.

I looked back and forth between Hermione and Alice as if they were crazy. 'You need to read through it though,' she said smiling, 'there's recipes in there for preventing fertility and I think I skimmed over one about venom reduction!'

'So I can see Jasper?' I asked of Alice, back to setting the fireworks off between the dynamics of our group. 'If I brew these, I can see Jasper?' I thumbed through the book and found an exact copy of the Golden Fix recipe I had read months before.

'I'll call Edward.' She said and went to make the call privately somewhere else in the Manor. It took a lot of effort not to follow her and listen to her responses to Edward; I had hope that she would come back with a negative, just so I could cause a fuss and make everybody squirm.

I had the dawning realisation that at any moment Jasper could walk into my life and the sudden sense that if he did come back, I would be almost powerless to leave him; he would kill his prey before letting out of his sight, surely.

I didn't like that I was starting dehumanize Jasper in my mind and yet, the thrill of the beast inside him was compelling.

I flicked through the gothic book., humming to myself to ease the quantitative despondency. Page One: _**Ageing**_; page two;_** Loving**_: page three: _**Emotional Healing**_; pages four to seven: _**Feeding, Thirst and Control...**_

I was enraptured by the contents and the possibilities. 'Hermione,' I said, looking at the ingredients for the ageing potions, 'we need to get ingredients.'

She came and looked over my shoulder and the book. 'Some of these look rare, Draco.'

'They look rare, yes.' I said, indicating to Elfin Horse Hair. 'You've never heard of that, have you?' She shook her head. 'You haven't heard of it, because that's the old name for Unicorn Hair. Any ingredients we can't get from the apothecary's, or Knockturn Alley, will have to be acquired by other means.'

'Other means?' She asked.

'Black market.' I said, flipping a couple pages over, 'a totally lightless market. We're talking about going to Gog's place.' I thought about it for a moment; I had heard rumours from reliable people during the war about the legendary place. It _was_ possible.

Hermione's energy went chilly as Alice chimed with curiosity; 'Gog's place?'

I bit down my interest to know about her phone call. 'It's legendary,' Hermione said opposing, 'we don't know if it's real.'

I looked at her with furrowed brow. 'Who's to say it isn't real?' I grumbled.

'Us, I guess.' Hermione sighed, spelling more books from the library shelves onto her pile. 'Of all the crazy places I have been,' she muttered, 'I never would have thought I would go searching for Gog's place.'

I thought then that the three best people to enquire about such things were either dead or in jail. My father wasn't allowed visitation and poor Snape and Dumbledore had left this world. A thought popped into my head, 'Go to Hogwarts; talk to Dumbledore and Snape's portraits.' I said, waving a dismissing hand at Hermione.

She bristled a little bit; more of an itchy curiosity. I turned away from her and looked at Alice. ''Edward said that if you brew The Golden Fix, then they'll bring him here.'

'Sure,' I said, 'how much do I need to brew?' Frightened now; my ability to brew the only thing keeping Jasper and I away from each other. Was I ready, at that point, to accept him back into my life when the scars on my chest were still sore and eating made me feel rather unwell. Was I willing to forgive his mistakes, just to be able to fuck each other? Couldn't I get laid by someone else, someone less insane?

I crumbled as my eyes came to the hopeful and excited gazes of Hermione and Alice.

I took myself away to the dungeons, letting myself fall to the floor as a panic attack took hold of me.

**Thank you to all those who reviewed this story, put this story on story alert, put me on their favourite author lists and put this story on their favourite story lists. **

**And thank you to MellieBox, for being excited to hear me read for hours, the rather terrible and incomplete versions of this and the future chapters of Photographing Forests.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer applies as found in chapter one. **

X

**Am I the only one who is insane**

X

A revolting disturbance ran on the rails of my nerves throughout me as I took to the laboratorium at every waking moment, trying with great success to develop the potions needed for the Cullen clan.

Things like fertility inhibitors and venom control were brewed with as much secrecy as possible because I wanted to convince myself that they would at least help Edward and Bella; I saw it in that moment that I was never having Jasper back in my life.

That's what I told myself every time I froze in a panic, watching the moments we spent together running through my mind, especially London.

London seemed unforgivable to me as dreams of once upon a time met my hard, cold resolution; dreams of a child sat between two fathers, who doted on and loved that child more than anything. And the secret thoughts, of going to bed with my partner at the end of a long, hard days work and becoming one together.

And Jasper had expected all of that from me, I thought, without ever giving me reasons to give it to him. I fretted, thinking that no matter the comforting words that were said to me, somehow Jasper and I would be interlocked forever, dancing around the issue and always ending up hurting each other. Soul mates, without a reason to be mates at all.

And crushed together, because he was _immortal_! Damn it! A long term relationship to him, could last the rest of my life!

Although we did have that energy between us; that suffocating, inescapable rush of adventure...

And hadn't it already been an adventure? I was here, working through my issues with the Trio and quite enjoying having them bend to my every whim. I was happy-go-lucky to brew potions; at the very least, that gave me quite the purpose to keep going. I needed that. I needed a hook, an anchor, to keep me from floating the vast sea of the future, unguided and aimless.

I had also suffered for a month in hospital, recovering from the pitiful despair of an imbalanced nervous system. I had, for a few hours, had a baby inside of me.

I had sex with a gorgeous, emotional vampire and been bitten, cursed. Yes, he had cursed me... he had laid his hands on me and made me wish for more of that touch. That bad kind of touch that would cause me to loose all sense of control if I let myself have it.

I missed it... and I missed him.

Though, irresponsible thoughts like that, had to be punished out of me. Just like sixth and seventh year at Hogwarts; I used to skip meals and run jagged edges over my skin, every time I felt like defaulting from the dark side and every time I felt like leaving my mother in the snake pit. Every time I felt selfish or my thoughts led somewhere I wasn't willing to go, however comfortable and warming they may be, I would hurt myself into submission.

Hurt became a real eye opener. I was gifted with clarity upon receiving the pain.

And I did that now; if I dare think about Jasper as someone who might be an addition to my life, I subtracted him from the situation ignoring the natural response to wipe away hot liquids from my skin, when they spat out of cauldrons. When I knew I could get away with it, I would put my food in the trash.

I was blinded to when this had begun again; as I understand it now, it was probably a transition from annoying everyone around me as I went into a solitary potions rush.

However, Alice was quite keen to watch me work in the laboratorium. Never once did it stop amazing her as the candelabras flamed to life at my magical presence, as we graced the cold dungeons together. Never once did it it fail to infuriate me as her powerful eyes watched me.

I was content with Harry's lessening presence also... him, with his knowing eyes, watching me. Those knowing eyes filled with memories of our hateful history. Those knowing eyes made me shudder.

The healers had told me they wouldn't let me leave St. Mungo's until I showed a cheery, light of heart demeanour... I would often think, and pride myself on it, how good an actor I was. There was nothing inside me except a burning rage.

And fuck it! It was hard with Alice watching me all the time too... I don't know if she sensed my discomfort, or my irritation, as she flew around the dungeons, searching all the passages and rooms for anything she thought might be helpful in her quest. It was hard to get away with missing meals and letting the urge to brew overcome me.

I thought that the dungeons was my domain. Mine. I was safe down here. I wasn't going to cause a ruckus. Alice just cemented herself as my watcher and irritator for no explainable reason.

She was always looking for more and more interesting things... magical things. Dark things. Items that would light up and shine for her or morph into other things. After a while, I used befuddling charms on her, just so she would come up empty handed. And, there was a lot of disturbing things in the dungeons at best; things I did not want to general public to be aware of. _My_ general public; that crazy bunch of fuckers that walked the floors above me.

So, it came as some surprise that even though she had buried me beneath her heavy energies and excited emotions that after a week or so, Alice no longer came down to see me.

I no longer found the need to take myself upstairs either. Down there, in the darkened space, was the perfect opportunity to rid myself of the evils from the outside world.

Being back at home, no matter how relieving and enjoyable the boyhood memories may be, a thundering scare boomed about the walls of the Manor; I remembered long summer nights awakened by the ghostly presence of teenage years spent in fury, jealousy and repression. I remembered cold nights at Hogwarts, sealed in my dorm room, making sadistic plans to remove Harry Potter from his position of grace and crush him beneath my glory. I remembered being visited by the Dark Lord, his sinister smile as the burn took my arm from a forming Dark Mark. I remembered being ordered to kill Dumbledore...

Dear, sweet, annoying Dumbledore.

And I remembered the aching from never achieving my goal.

Harry screaming after me and Snape as we fled Hogwarts.

Quite comical were the incidents between us up until sixth year; bouncing ferrets and travelling the Forbidden Forest in the witching hour. But to look at Harry every day and recall how low and miserable I must have made him all during sixth year, from breaking his nose to being quite obvious that I was up to something. I was a scared little boy too afraid to ask for help, who took great lengths to appease Voldemort. And whatever the reasons for my actions, one couldn't deny that I must have been insane of mind to venture them.

I could of asked Dumbledore for help.

I could of crumbled there in that bathroom and let Harry help me.

Things could have been a lot different.

These thoughts too, kept me in the dungeons, stirring and mixing and brewing. These thoughts too, kept me in the dungeons, reading the books I asked of Stella to bring down to me. These thoughts too, kept me in the dungeons, punishing myself every time the regretful feelings came upon me in such a way I felt the need to either die or receive pain to account for the horrible things I had done.

I wasn't as fortunate as my father who was serving time in prison.

I knew I must make up for the terrible actions I had taken.

And, as I then began to see it, I was an ugly, snivelling little excuse for a wizard.

I cut myself. I starved myself. I tested potions on myself; some, I deliberately made bad just so they would cause me to vomit.

The scars on my legs were raised and tender against the fabric of my jeans by the first month I had been down in the laboratorium. _My belly ached too_. I knew it had been a month, however vaguely, by the bottled potions of Golden Fix that sat on a newly cleaned shelf on the left wall. If, at times, I woke from sleep and moved into the laboratorium to keep on brewing to take away the idle anger that coursed through me, the Golden Fix would glow so brightly gold, it lit my way down the hallway into the laboratorium.

My bedroom was a small room, carved from stone with a hard, uncomfortable mattress dressed in drab, itchy colours looking up revoltingly from a worryingly wonky four-poster base. I cooked up thoughts of my father, down here, in times of great need for solitude, suffering from the same desire to purge himself of his misdeeds as I. I liked to think that my dark side came from him; it made more sense. I doubted my mother had the same self-treachery as me, and the thought that she would take a knife to her skin made me feel ill.

Actually, the thought of my mother in any dangerous situation made me lurch with need to put myself in the line of fire to save her.

I missed her air-head self most of all.

Out of all the living Malfoy's, she was the only one that deserved to live.

Occasionally when I exhausted the interest in potions and magical creature liberation, I put myself out by thinking why no body now came to see me. Was I boring? Were they tired of me and my antagonising personality? Had they all left the Manor?

I really, honestly, did not care. I, of course, could leave the dungeons at any time and find out the answers to my questions.

But I was safe here; I was in control of the memories. No thoughts of Moaning Myrtles bathroom could hurt me and no recollection of kneeling in front of Voldemort could make my legs turn to jelly... without me doing something about it, to remind me that I was in the here and now.

And so delicious my routine became; wake up, usually with my face on a desk, pressed against journals that I had scribed notes of magical law or potions variations. Quick pee and wash hands; there was no real need to busy myself with vanity and occasionally I had to force myself into the small, dirty shower and rinse away a week or two of grime from my skin, or shave away a scratchy beard. Then, after that, I would take myself to the lab, where I would push myself for hours and hours, never taking much of a break, until my head hit the desk again and my eyes closed of there own accord.

As time went by, I realised that my new position below the world was very swell indeed. I liked the secrecy, and down here with an extensive catalogue of ingredients, I spent time brewing illegal potions and dangerous ones, just because I _could_. Nothing else existed outside my laboratorium; time, itself, was neither here nor there. I was not aware of a sunrise or sunset. I was not exposed to calendar days.

It didn't take me very long to begin loosing all sense of self, either. Punishment was now a daily routine; eating was a fierce battle between nausea and need, as two sides of nature warred. The candelabras dimmed considerably, unable to meet my lowering magical power. My once obsessive personal hygiene was thrown to the dogs... occasionally, I would wake up with the crack of a house elves disappearance and a stinging along my skin from a scourgify.

I was encouraged, however, to keep going. Admittedly, this came from the never ending sense that no matter how much I brewed, I just wouldn't have enough. I would not achieve enough. I suppose I thought then that if I carried on concocting brews, I would be safe from harm; as if, the only thing keeping me from ending up somewhere out of my control was to be controlled by the one thing I knew and could believe in. It seemed, apart from the Golden Trio, the only thing bringing my life before Forks and the life thereafter was potions.

And potions were coming very thickly between me and my everything I knew of social interaction and health. I knew this, because I felt bizarre; churning stomach at the thought of maybe, possibly, going upstairs for a nice long bath or visiting the kitchens to find warm cake and fine wine. I knew something was wrong because every time I thought of taking myself to the horrid, worn bed down the corridor, I stabbed my fingers with a pin to remind myself that this, the potions, were the only things that were important.

And I liked that I was going crazy for them. I loved that potions, although created to help people, were effectively coming between established friendships and the possibility of being that fucking reckless, happy teenager I so yearned to be.

The torture was explosive.

And who could blame me? I had been marked since birth to be the boy who walked the fine lines between good and bad, right and wrong, dark and light. Was it not my prerogative to go off the rails? Was it not fortunate that I _knew_ what I was doing? I was in control, yes?

No body at all could take away the sense of importance that came with being down in those dungeons, quite happy, all alone.

Except myself of course. I drown lost in this world and come up, wanting escape, unable to achieve it because of my own deafening want for safety and calm.

One day, when I sat watching the bubbling liquids filling up every work station in the lab, echoing conversations between me and the rest of them upstairs flittered like thirst quenching aggravation before my minds eye.

'Well, I've found a lot about vampiric relations.' Hermione had said, coming into the room. She had a contented, drained feeling about her. This was all before they decided to leave me alone, about a week or so before nobody came for me.

'Oh?' I asked her, not interested one bit. Her small, slightly rounded body stood before me, a book in her small hands and a smile gracing her small face. I wanted to make it all go away... _leave me to my potions_, I thought. I humoured myself with memories of a bucktoothed, irritatingly smart, young girl.

'Very interesting stuff,' she hedged, 'a lot to consider.' Her voice was tempting.

I looked up, giving her seventy percent of my attention. She felt smug to me. 'Explain, please?' I asked.

'Well,' she started, standing in the middle of the room with a booky smell surrounding her, 'there's a lot fluff between the pages but I did find there was a treaty signed between a coven of vampires and wizards in 19AD.'

'And, pray tell,' I snarled, 'what did this treaty do?' I wondered why she was taking so long. I dropped my attention on her from seventy percent to fifty. Her interest in speaking spiked like a rocket into the air; the effect was irritating.

'It was for the control of vampiric relations between vampires and wizards, who were trying to further their horizons by utilising magic.'

'That isn't interesting, Hermione.' My attention dropped further, from fifty to thirty percent.

'It is when you think about how, as wizards, we see werewolves and vampires.'

'As creatures, not humans.' I said, uninterested totally now. My hand swatted the topic away and in the light from the glowing blue potion I was working over, the shadow cast looked like I was swatting her.

'Exactly... so that got me thinking,' her energy was becoming infectious, 'about why there isn't such a wealth of information on vampires whilst there is about werewolves. You see, our mentality about self-preservation as a society dominates our compassion; we stock up on information about werewolves because they look the same as we do. Vampires don't.'

'So you think that we reject vampires because of their image?' I asked her, like it was totally obvious already. _Dumb fucker_, I thought. Thinking back on it now, I was stupid to ever think of Hermione in such a way.

'It's likely. Aside from that, though; I think to learn more, we have to go and talk to vampires.'

'Hi Alice, how are you?' I asked sarcastically, turning to the place she normally sat, now devoid of her presence. I guessed she was with Harry, off doing couply _things_ and assigning themselves to a life of hard grafting, prejudice inducing, infinity. Maybe she would drive Harry crazy like Jasper had done to me... he would be a great help, albeit an annoying one, down here in the dungeons.

'Magical vampires, Draco.' Hermione said, sharp and hard.

'Vampire's don't have magic, _Hermione_.' I grumbled.

'And humans don't have magic,' she said, eyebrows raised, 'except magical ones!'

I suddenly felt weird. 'Look, Hermione,' I condescended unashamedly, 'unless we have proof of this, it's highly unlikely that such things exist.' I stopped for a moment and thought back to the bathroom in Seattle, where I too came to the conclusion that it was impossible for potions to work on vampires without magic.

Maybe I had been thinking about vampires who had been turned from wizards?

'I said the same thing about Gog's Place.' She said, unloading a lot of frustration into her words. 'And you said we would just have to suffer figuring it out regardless.'

I huffed and added winklewart to my brew. 'The thing about that,' I started in a new vein of malice, 'is we can't really rely on anything at the moment. Remind me, why are we doing this?'

She looked at me like I was crazy... 'Draco,' she admonished as if I truly had lost the plot, 'you are doing this for Jasper.'

I hummed a great tune of discomfort. I didn't like that name used before me, without warning and without sensitivity. My face pinched in a grimace and I turned to the back bench on the far wall; my hands worked fast over some valerian root. '

'Well, I did read in this really old journal about a coven leader that squib vampires flocked too, because he could perform wanded magic.' She said. 'I kind of did just suggest that vampires could utilise magic, too.'

I felt impressed, 'So it's possible that a wizard may keep his magic after he has turned?' I wondered how much of this was curiosity for the possibility of me myself becoming full vampire.

As I thought about this again in the present, away from my nostalgia, my hands came from their stasis under my chin, where they held my bored head up, and coaxed my pin from under a piece of parchment.

I punctured a few holes into my fingertips.

The piercing pain drove the insane reminiscence from my mind. Here, alone in the dungeons, I stood and walked around checking the cauldrons and doing anything that was needed too.

'Fertility potion, you are coming along beautifully...' I said to the fiercely spitting liquid that illuminated my hands over it in pinks and purples.

I wondered, if at all, it would work against magical conception... _Not for __me of course!_ I yelled against my masochistic mentor in my head. _For other people... _

Although, the briefest flicker of bone breaking sex came to me from the part of my mind that controlled my sexual urges and I berated myself, thinking that the face of Jasper was only there because he was the only dangerous fuck I had ever had.

_Not strictly true... _

I quickly touched the heated metal of the cauldron and let my fingertips sizzle under the burn for two seconds. The face of an angry, badly treated, hard cocked and willing Death Eater broke into pieces under the flood of alarm bells going off in my head.

_There... all better. _

_I will not subject myself to horrible wishes of Jasper again._

Or, so I told myself. Increasingly, as more days wove on through heady bouts of driven depression and fulfilling the natural desires I had from the outside world- the world before the dungeons- coursed unseeing through time and space, I had an itchy nerve to get out of the horrid place I was in.

I missed the fresh air.

I missed making people squirm.

And every time I moved to the stairway that would lead to the ground floor, my heart froze and I couldn't bear it.

I couldn't bear going back up there where I had to pretend to happy that one day Jasper might come back to me. I could not, would not, subject myself to the empty space between us, that came into vivid light upon seeing all those happy couples upstairs.

And yet, his hands on my skin and the scary look in his eyes made the nervousness feel like something I might akin myself too and take with me bravely to the top of the stairs.

But I was cunning, not brave. I had no guarantee of the results that would come from me going upstairs.

So I started ordering Stella for more books than necessary, on all kinds of topics. My favourite to read has always been and always would be magical law; the texts made me want to do something different than potions mastery.

Read and read I would. Sleep badly and yearn to do something, anything to rid myself of this cabin fever, because I knew that I was wasting away down here.

I needed adventure.

I needed anything.

I would do _anything_...

X

**Thank you to all those who have enjoyed this story. Thank you to all those who reviewed. Thank you to all those who added this story to story alert and the like.**

**Thank you to ELI and MELLIEBOX. **


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